Help! Public Library Page Time Zone Issue and site going live today!

[Danny]

I can’t figure out why the events calendar is showing imported events 4 hours in the future for example Monday April 3rd Poetry Fest is at 3:30 but it says 7:30 here http://sanlib.org/events/2017-04/

And on the old calendar its importing from is correct http://fl.evanced.info/sanibel/lib/eventcalendar.asp

I thought it may be time zone related so I changed the WP General Setting to UTC-4 and went to Calendar Import and Ran the import, which made event updates and it’s still all 4 hours wrong.

I looked in forum here and followed the (2) troubleshooting options, and still can’t figure it out. I dont see an ‘update time zone’ settings button like in this link:
https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/working-with-timezones/

So then I did this, and stll can’t get it right. Any help appreciated, we are Eastern time.,
https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/testing-for-conflicts/

[Danny]

The source calendar is set to Eastern, so it’s not my source, the ICS file that the plugin is importing from is dated correctly and knows the eastern time format:
http://fl.evanced.info/sanibel/lib/eventsxml.asp?ag=&et=&lib=0&nd=30&feedtitle=Sanibel+Public+Library<BR>Schedule+of+Events&dm=ical&LangType=0

But when it enters ‘The events calendar’ plugin it is changing the event date timezone? How can I stop this? Please advise

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Danny.

[Danny]

This is tremendously annoying. I am changing all the items manually. Please advise, we had hoped this premium plugin would be easier to deal with.

[Danny]

Where is it getting these times? The ICS doesnt say this time or zone and the site knows it’s eastern time yet it’s showing 4 hours later for everything? This is driving me crazy!! and from what I see in these forum posts you guys are not much help apparently 🙁

[Cliff]

Danny, sorry you’re experiencing this and for the delayed reply, as we were mostly out last week and are always out during weekends.

I downloaded your iCal file from the link you shared, but I didn’t see all the same events from your latest screenshot.

Taking the April 4 “After-school Clique, 3rd-5th grades” event as a sample, I see in the iCal file:

DTSTART:20170404T190000Z
DTEND:20170404T200000Z

The time format plus ending in “Z” equals “7pm to 8pm in UTC timezone”.

Since we’re in Daylight Savings Time (DST) as of this date–Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) is UTC-4–this would be equivalent to 3pm to 4pm EDT.

Are you now clear how the “Z” affects the time? If yes, if this timing is incorrect, you’ll need to address that issue with whomever authors / inputs the data to the iCal feed.

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions on this topic.

[Danny]

Interesting. The evanced calendar must be writing in the Z somewhere. I will have to look further into the issue. Until then i have reverted us back to the old calenda http://sanlib.org/calendar/ Thanks for the tips I will investigate how the Z is getting there

[Cliff]

You’re welcome.

Note that it is likely best practice for the event to be listed in UTC (or “Z” or “Zulu”) time to ensure all other calendars know how to read it… so the bug on that side might not be “adding the Z” but instead that it is adding the Z as it should but not also converting the event time to UTC times.

Please let me know if I can be of further help with this issue.

[Support Droid]

Hey there! This thread has been pretty quiet for the last three weeks, so we’re going to go ahead and close it to avoid confusion with other topics. If you’re still looking for help with this, please do open a new thread, reference this one and we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation over there.

Thanks so much!
The Events Calendar Support Team

[Author]

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