A question about the Time Zone.

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  • Grover
    Senior Member
    • May 2001
    • 4005
    • 3.8.x

    A question about the Time Zone.

    Hello,

    I can't remember exactly, but a couple of months ago I realised that my Time Zone settings in the AdminCP were wrong.

    It was set at (GMT) Western Europe Time, London, Lisbon, Casablanca, but it had to be (GMT +1:00 hour) Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris, because I live in the Netherlands (Amsterdam).

    I thought it was strange because on my old VB2 board those settings were correct? I setup a testvb board (upgrading from 2.3.4 to the betas to the alpha to the final) and just re-checked the Time Zone settings there and indeed... they are set to (GMT) Western Europe Time, London, Lisbon, Casablanca inside the AdminCP.

    I also upgraded my live production-board to VB3 and like I said... I can't remember correctly... but I am almost convinced that I had to reset the Time Zone to (GMT +1:00 hour) Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris, on my live-board in the AdminCP. Well... I am pretty sure actually now I look back on it, because my testvb still has the default upgrade-settings there.

    Note: DST Enable Daylight Savings was set to NO in the AdminCP. And apparently... the DST Correction Option is set to 'Autmatically detect' inside the User's CP.

    The thing is... we went into Daylight Savings Time recently and suddenly the clock was 2 hours off. Meaning... that a registered user reported that the message's he posted had incorrect timestamp: 2 hours difference. In real-time it is '11:05' now in Holland, but the timestamp on the postings is '09:05'.

    I'm not sure I understand the 'concept' of the timezones, but I guess the above is logical, because...:

    GMT (London Time) is put back 1 hour when you are in Daylight Savings Time and GMT +1 (Amsterdam Time) is put forward 1 hour when you are in Daylight Savings Time. So, when you live in Amsterdam at this time and you have your Time Zone set to 'GMT (London Time)' inside your UserCP, then your 'time-indication' is put back 1 hour... but since the time in Amsterdam is put forward 1 hour in real life (servertime) ...... it results in a 2-hour difference in this example because you did not have the correct Time Zone set in your UserCP in the first place.... (do you still follow? )

    The problem is this. A couple of months ago I changed the Time Zone settings in the AdminCp from (GMT) to (GMT + 1 hour) (as explained above... for some reason (a mistake of myself or VB?) the board was set to the incorrect GMT instead of the correct GMT+1). Now -going into Daylight Savings- the problem has arised that users see an incorrect timestamp (2 hours off!).

    I first thought that setting Enable Daylight Savings to YES in the AdminCP would be a solution. But it isn't because:

    If Daylight Savings Time is currently in effect for the above time zone, enable this option so that guests will see the correct times on posts and events. This has no effect on registered users as they control their DST options in the User CP.


    Since (due to myself or VB3?) the AdminCP time was set to (GMT) initially... the UserCP time was ALSO set to (GMT) initially. I changed the (GMT) to the correct (GMT+1) in the AdminCP a couple of monts ago... but apparently this DOES NOT change the Timezone in the UserCP. The results of this are that now (after Daylight Savings) my users have a incorrect time-display: a 2 hour-difference! The only solution seems to be that EVERY user has to reset their Timezone from (GMT) to (GMT + 1 hour) in their own UserCP.

    Please correct me if I am wrong on this... but if I'm not then this is a very user/admin - unfriendly situation.

    What should I do now to correct those timezone problems on my board?
    Last edited by Grover; Tue 13 Apr '04, 2:03am.
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  • Grover
    Senior Member
    • May 2001
    • 4005
    • 3.8.x

    #2
    Anyone has an answer to the thing I mention above?


    Since this is related :

    In http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93571 I am looking for a way to move these Time Zone and DST fields out of the registration-screen.

    Some thoughts:

    Q: I run a national (we have NO foreign members) forum so why do I need those Time Zone settings? Why not make them optional through the AdminCP?
    Q: Since the Time Zone is apparantly not a global setting (am I right?), why not make it one? So that changing the Time Zone in the ACP changes the Time Zone in ALL userCP's: that would be a solution to the problem I describe above.

    I will put a suggestion out for this in the appropriate forum.
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    • Grover
      Senior Member
      • May 2001
      • 4005
      • 3.8.x

      #3
      Ability to globally change Time Zone for existing users.

      In ACP --> Date & Time options I have set the following field:

      Default Time Zone Offset
      Time zone offset for guests and new users. Do not take DST into consideration, rather use the next option to enable/disable DST.

      I have recently set this to 'GMT +1'. (VB3 default = 'GMT'). But this only applies to NEW users. I am looking for a way to change this for EXISTING users.

      (Speaking about this... apart from the time-zone, there are more settings in VB3 that only seem to apply to NEW members, where in fact they also could be VERY usefull for EXISTING members. Hopfully VB3.1 will provide us with more options for existing members)

      ... but I guess in this example I am looking for a SQL Query. Anyone?
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      • Grover
        Senior Member
        • May 2001
        • 4005
        • 3.8.x

        #4
        Any solution?

        Please, if someone has the time to look at my question above? I need a way (query?) to set the time for ALL EXISTING users to (GMT +1) instead of (GMT) which everyone has now.

        The time for all of my users is wrong now, due to the situation I described above, so I need a fix for all my EXISTING users.
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        Comment

        • Floris
          Senior Member
          • Dec 2001
          • 37767

          #5
          I did, but I have always had problems looking time on a clock, I mean .. I goto bed when the sun comes up and wake up when it is evening dinner to have some lunch.

          Comment

          • Grover
            Senior Member
            • May 2001
            • 4005
            • 3.8.x

            #6
            Originally posted by Floris
            I did, but I have always had problems looking time on a clock, I mean .. I goto bed when the sun comes up and wake up when it is evening dinner to have some lunch.
            I guess this is what they call 'Dutch humor'....
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            • Grover
              Senior Member
              • May 2001
              • 4005
              • 3.8.x

              #7
              ... and when you are awake Floris... maybe you could grave deep in your memory and present your fellow dutchman with a solution? Thanks in advance!
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              • kafi
                Senior Member
                • Apr 2004
                • 283
                • 3.6.x

                #8
                disable date & time zone in userCP

                Hi, I would like to also remove date&time parto from the user edit options. Do you have any idea how, without change in the template (code)?
                thanks
                Richard

                Comment

                • Grover
                  Senior Member
                  • May 2001
                  • 4005
                  • 3.8.x

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Grover
                  Please, if someone has the time to look at my question above? I need a way (query?) to set the time for ALL EXISTING users to (GMT +1) instead of (GMT) which everyone has now.

                  The time for all of my users is wrong now, due to the situation I described above, so I need a fix for all my EXISTING users.
                  Bump.
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                  • Grover
                    Senior Member
                    • May 2001
                    • 4005
                    • 3.8.x

                    #10
                    Can someone please help me out?

                    (bump again)

                    Please, I keep getting complaints from my users about the wrong time-setting, so I will kindly ask again : can somebody please help me out on this?

                    Like I said/asked a couple of times before in the above postings : I need a way (query?) to set the time for ALL EXISTING users to (GMT +1) instead of (GMT) which everyone has now.

                    A solution would be appreciated very much!
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                    Comment

                    • Steve Machol
                      Former Customer Support Manager
                      • Jul 2000
                      • 154488

                      #11
                      Backup your database then run this query:

                      UPDATE user SET timezoneoffset='+1';
                      Steve Machol, former vBulletin Customer Support Manager (and NOT retired!)
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                      • Grover
                        Senior Member
                        • May 2001
                        • 4005
                        • 3.8.x

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Steve Machol
                        Backup your database then run this query:

                        UPDATE user SET timezoneoffset='+1';
                        Fantastic Steve! Thank you. I will try this out in a couple of minutes and let you know how it worked out.
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                        • Grover
                          Senior Member
                          • May 2001
                          • 4005
                          • 3.8.x

                          #13
                          Strange behaviour?

                          Alright. I executed your query inside the ACP and this was the result:

                          Affected Rows: 1,615

                          - I have 1754 users, so I expected 1754 instead of 1,615. But I have no knowlegde of MySQL so my question is : does it not count the users which have already manually set their correct settings?

                          - Another thing is this: I thought executing this query did not have a correct result, because of the fact that the time displayed ('All times are GMT +2. The time now is 9:23pm') was not 'GMT+2', like it should be, but 'GMT+1'. I logged in with a user-account who did not have the correct time-setting of 'GMT+1' in their profile before. The time they saw before the query was ('All times are GMT The time now is 7:23pm'), but now it was 'All times are GMT+1 The time now is 8:23pm'). This is not correct, because it had to be GMT+2 (we are in DST). So I thought that this query did not have the results I wanted.
                          BUT... strangly when I just clicked on 'UserCP' and then immediately went back to the forum homepage.... the correct 'GMT+2' was there! So I guess it went well after all, or do all of my users have to click on 'UserCP' before they can see the correct time?
                          Last edited by Grover; Mon 17 May '04, 11:32am.
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                          • Grover
                            Senior Member
                            • May 2001
                            • 4005
                            • 3.8.x

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Grover
                            Alright. I executed your query inside the ACP and this was the result:

                            Affected Rows: 1,615

                            A: - I have 1754 users, so I expected 1754 instead of 1,615. But I have no knowlegde of MySQL so my question is : does it not count the users which have already manually set their correct settings?

                            B: - Another thing is this: I thought executing this query did not have a correct result, because of the fact that the time displayed ('All times are GMT +2. The time now is 9:23pm') was not 'GMT+2', like it should be, but 'GMT+1'. I logged in with a user-account who did not have the correct time-setting of 'GMT+1' in their profile before. The time they saw before the query was ('All times are GMT The time now is 7:23pm'), but now it was 'All times are GMT+1 The time now is 8:23pm'). This is not correct, because it had to be GMT+2 (we are in DST). So I thought that this query did not have the results I wanted.
                            BUT... strangly when I just clicked on 'UserCP' and then immediately went back to the forum homepage.... the correct 'GMT+2' was there! So I guess it went well after all, or do all of my users have to click on 'UserCP' before they can see the correct time?
                            Question A: Alright... I tested it again by changing the UserCP Time setting of one user to 'GMT' instead of 'GMT+1'. I re-run the query and this way I found out that the query indeed only affects records that do not already have this field set to 'GMT+1'. Logically... the query now only affected one row. So question 'A' is answered for me.

                            Question B: Alright... with the new test mentioned above I also saw the 'GMT+1' mentioned at the bottom of the forum-home page for this particular user. It suddenly changed to 'GMT+2' when I clicked on the UserCP. I went back to the forumhome-page and it was changed to 'GMT+2' there as well. Isn't this a bit strange? Just try it yourselve if that's possible on your board.

                            My question is : does every user now have to click once on their UserCP, because logging in or out or pressing F5 or something like that does not seem to help?
                            Last edited by Grover; Mon 17 May '04, 11:50am.
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                            • Grover
                              Senior Member
                              • May 2001
                              • 4005
                              • 3.8.x

                              #15
                              Originally posted by Grover
                              Question B: Alright... with the new test mentioned above I also saw the 'GMT+1' mentioned at the bottom of the forum-home page for this particular user. It suddenly changed to 'GMT+2' when I clicked on the UserCP. I went back to the forumhome-page and it was changed to 'GMT+2' there as well. Isn't this a bit strange? Just try it yourselve if that's possible on your board.

                              My question is : does every user now have to click once on their UserCP, because logging in or out or pressing F5 or something like that does not seem to help?
                              I realise that this forum get's more crowed everyday... but if someone can find the time maybe to test this on his/hers board, it would be very much appreciated.

                              I do not know if the situation I described above is a bug. I would like to see some sort of confirmation on this, so I know what to do: do I have to instruct my users/moderators to actually click on their UserCP ONCE, or is there another way I could make these time settings works at once for everybody, or do I overlook something and does it work like it should?

                              Thanks for any help,
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