Lesson Learned #73: Azure Database for MySQL – CONVERT_TZ returns null

Hello Team,

Today, we have a new service request where our customer asked about the CONVERT_TZ function to convert time to CET, but, unfortunately the function always returns null.

Searching in several MySQL webs we found that it is needed to run a process to load the different time zones as are described in these URLs:

• https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/time-zone-upgrades.html
• https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/mysql-tzinfo-to-sql.html
• https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/timezones.html

As you know you don't have access to Azure Database for MySQL instance but, following the article https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/mysql/howto-server-parameters and see the part of “Working with the time zone parameter” there, you will have this option available.

Enjoy!