Why Bother?

[jpanhalt]

Sunday, as a subject to DST in the USA, I changed my profile to:  Eastern Time (UTC-5) That is EST (USA)(snippet attached).

It still hasn't taken effect.   Is any program watching changes in profile?
javascript:void(0)

[StillTrying]

If it's out by 1 hour I think you have to fix that yourself with a -4 or -6.

[jpanhalt]

If it's out by 1 hour I think you have to fix that yourself with a -4 or -6.

Then what does UTC mean?   Eastern time zone USA is UTC-4 with DST and -5 without DST, i.e., EST.

[Monkeh]

Location != timezone. It does not parse arbitrary text strings for you.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?area=theme

[LateLesley]

UTC is Coordinated Universal Time, which has been set as the standard time that every other timezone references off of. It is the same time as GMT, and other time zones work out their time in respect to UTC.

https://www.timeanddate.com/time/gmt-utc-time.html

Most systems will automatically change between Daylight saving time (DST) and your timezone if it observes it. Computers use a system called NTP - Network time protocol to update time and date from a time server, usually one tied to an atomic time reference. Many countries have National Physics Laboratories (NPL), where such things are maintained. And Universities often have time servers set up as Tier 2 servers which reference time from the NPL server (which is usually Tier 1).

Now from the quick googling I did, it seems this forum gets it's time from the host server. And people in different timezones then use offsets to set their own time properly. It was an older thread I was reading though, so it could have improved/moved on since then. It could be that you changed your timezone, then Dave's server changed it's own time several hours later. That is of course assuming Aussie's have a DST, not all countries do. But if they have, it would probably change at 2am Aussie time. I'm not sure of Dave's timezone, nor if it uses DST.

https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=193052.0

[tautech]

Daves server is in the US and not far back was shifted to a different provider after numerous issues. Then after ongoing bitching about the servers Aussie default time and DST changes US time was set as default to appease the larger audience.

A little fiddling is required to get your local time correct............

[Ian.M]

As of August 20, 2019, the forum's 'native' time is UTC.  Unfortunately SMF doesn't seem to be smart enough to handle time zones intelligently (or even correctly), so those of us in locations that use daylight saving time, have to either adjust our profile's time offset twice a year, or live with it being an hour out during our local daylight saving time.  For most users, this is vastly preferable to the former situation when the forum's native time was AEST/AEDT ('Melbourne time'), and anyone in a location where local daylight saving time was active between different dates to AEDT would have to either adjust the offset four times a year or accept the possibility of the time being off by up to two hours depending on the exact date one set the offset to get initially correct forum time.

You'll find the time offset in your profile at https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?area=theme
(if logged in).   Logged out guests have to live with the forum's 'native time' being UTC.

[jpanhalt]

You all miss the point.   I am not naive about either UTC or US time zones.  Last Sunday was when the US switched from DST (UTC-4) to EST (UTC-5).   So, along with changing my other clocks, I changed the setting on EEVBlog to be correct.  Evidence of that change was posted as a snippet from my profile.

THAT was to no avail.  For example, I am still getting posts time stamped as 0102 when the correct time at my location should be 0002.  In other words, from my perspective EEVBlog still calculates my time as DST.

[Ian.M]

No.  *YOU* are missing the point.  SMF does *NOT* understand timezones.  As Monkeh said:

Location != timezone. It does not parse arbitrary text strings for you.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?area=theme

Enter a time offset from UTC in hours (or decimal fractions thereof if you are in an odd-ball time zone), on the page of one's profile we both linked to, and it will be added to all native forum times before they are displayed.

P.S. After you've done that and confirmed it worked, please edit the topic title to something informative like "How do I set my timezone?" to make it more easily searchable, as all posts on the subject over ten weeks old have been at least partially obsoleted by Dave choosing to 'go global' and set the forum to use UTC.

[jpanhalt]

Enter a time offset from UTC in hours (or decimal fractions thereof if you are in an odd-ball time zone), on the page of one's profile we both linked to, and it will be added to all native forum times before they are displayed.

P.S. After you've done that and confirmed it worked, please edit the topic title to something informative like "How do I set my timezone?" to make it more easily searchable, as all posts on the subject over ten weeks old have been at least partially obsoleted by Dave choosing to 'go global' and set the forum to use UTC.

Had you looked at the attachment to my post, you should have seen that was exactly what I did.  Here is the full profile:


That clearly shows I am set to EST (UTC-5) yet the time stamps from EEVBlog are DST.  The image was taken at 12:10 AM local time (UTC-5).  And, I made that change as an UTC time offset on the profile change page Sunday morning. So like the title, it really doesn't matter -- at least it seems that way for some.

[Ian.M]

The forum doesn't understand or use user time zones.  Set the offset at the profile link I provided (*NOT* your timezone in the location field in the previous profile page), like this:

(apart from the red hilight round the field you need to enter).

*IF* you have set the offset, and it still doesn't work, I'm afraid you'll need Gnif's intervention as your profile may be corrupted.  Incidentally, what browser and OS are you using?  Just in case its a browser issue, I'm using various versions of Chromium on various Windows between XP and 10, and also on Rasbian Linux and formerly used K-Meleon on Windows 98 and XP and have never had a problem with the time offset other than its sheer dumbness.

[StillTrying]

The image was taken at 12:10 AM local time (UTC-5).  And, I made that change as an UTC time offset on the profile change page Sunday morning.

Any changes you make to your profile's Look and Layout including the timezone happen the instant you click on [Change Profile], there's no waiting for something to happen.
When the server was on Melbourne time, I had to just guess a value around -10 or -11. In theory the time should never have been out by more than 1hr, but for some reason it was sometimes out by 2hrs.

It's easy now, no BST, and UTC=GMT=0, and post's times are correct logged in or not, for the first time.

[jpanhalt]

The image was taken at 12:10 AM local time (UTC-5).  And, I made that change as an UTC time offset on the profile change page Sunday morning.

Any changes you make to your profile's Look and Layout including the timezone happen the instant you click on [Change Profile], there's no waiting for something to happen.

That was my impression too, and it didn't happen that way.   Did you look at the attachments?  So, what's the solution? 

[Ian.M]

Yep, changes are instant, but of course only visible on any topic pages you already have open if you *REFRESH* them

[StillTrying]

That was my impression too, and it didn't happen that way.  Did you look at the attachments?  So, what's the solution?

Of course I did! I always attempt to check details.
I'd set it to some other numbers such as -1 and +1 and see if the displayed post's times do at least change.

[ZigmundRat]

I can confirm that this simple change does the job. I’m used to working with UTC in many contexts but it’s always irked me a bit that the dates/times were off for me (but not enough to actually do something about it  ) This was ridiculously easy - thanks for the tip!

[StillTrying]

I've got the location set to Broken Britain, and the Swedish flag, but (auto detect) in Look and Layout still chooses the correct 0 time zone. Maybe it detects a UK IP, or it's just confused so sets it at 0 anyway.

[SparkyFX]

UTC does not have a DST offset, unfortunately DST differs from location to location, so it depends where you are. It is horribly complicated to calculate difference and display it correctly for everyone.

See this for some info

[Monkeh]

The image was taken at 12:10 AM local time (UTC-5).  And, I made that change as an UTC time offset on the profile change page Sunday morning.

Any changes you make to your profile's Look and Layout including the timezone happen the instant you click on [Change Profile], there's no waiting for something to happen.

That was my impression too, and it didn't happen that way.   Did you look at the attachments?  So, what's the solution?

The solution is to set your timezone offset in the offset field in the correct section of your profile, not to enter an arbitrary string in the Location field, which does nothing at all except display that string in your profile.

[StillTrying]

Just for random amusement, if anyone's connecting through a VPN using an IP in the wrong country I'd like to know if the (auto detect) timezone detection in   Profile > Look and Layout   still works, or not.

[PA0PBZ]

Just for random amusement, if anyone's connecting through a VPN using an IP in the wrong country I'd like to know if the (auto detect) timezone detection in   Profile > Look and Layout   still works, or not.

I just tried this. Normal offset for me is +1, and even when connected to a VPN ending in GB (offset 0) autodetect still gives me the +1. Not sure what it looks at...?

[StillTrying]

Thanks for doing the experiment.

When the UK (and PC!) is on summer time, (auto detect) still gets UTC(0)/GMT, and not BST, so it's 1 hour out.

Could it be getting your PC's local UTC(+/-)  time through the browser, even through the VPN's browser hiding I wonder.

Minor update:
I've just changed my PCs hour, it seems when the  Look and Layout  page is first opened it somehow captures your local UTC(+/-) time, and then clicking (auto detect) just fills in what was captured.
So maybe it's only your own browser doing it all locally, which would mean it's not all that clever after all !

I'll have to think about it a bit more....

[SparkyFX]

I just tried this. Normal offset for me is +1, and even when connected to a VPN ending in GB (offset 0) autodetect still gives me the +1. Not sure what it looks at...?

Probably browser language setting or the cookie from the forum?! The request contains quite some data, not just the IP.