iCal Feed in Pacific Time

[John Ridneour]

Hi,

We have a mobile app that we provide an iCal feed in order for it to automatically bring in the events that are on our website. The problem is that even though I’m on Eastern Time Zone, the times are given in Pacific Time. The app organization has given me these instructions to try and further troubleshoot:

“It looks like some configuration may need to happen for their iCal feed. It is missing VTIMEZONE/TZID to properly define the original Timezone for the feed (note: the Dashboard timezone settings will not override what is available in iCal) and also the Date-Time values are formatted for local time (missing a “Z” to lock them to the pre-defined timezone). ”

Is it possible to format this iCal feed to have a locked in Eastern Time Zone? https://www.fbcsudbury.org/events/?ical=1

Thanks!
Chelsea

[Cliff]

Hi, Chelsea. It’s true that what is there is what gets imported.

This recently-created snippet may be applicable here:

https://gist.github.com/cliffordp/f2cf6b3ce9f33c7ff17988c824d67e21

I’d strongly suggest involving your developer and/or testing on a staging server.

Ultimately, it’s best if you contact the source of the iCal file and get them to specify the time zone correctly.

Please let me know how this goes for you.

[John Ridneour]

Hi,

“Ultimately, it’s best if you contact the source of the iCal file and get them to specify the time zone correctly.”

Is there a way to specify an Eastern time zone in the calendar iCal url https://www.fbcsudbury.org/events/?ical=1? I agree that it would be best if the app source could specify the correct time zone, but they are just going off what is supplied in the iCal feed. I believe the problem is that our website is typically accessed on the Eastern time zone, but the app is hosted in California on Pacific, so when it’s given to the app, it’s Pacific. If there isn’t a way to specify it in the URL, I can try the git hub change, but wanted to check ahead of time.

Thanks,
Chelsea

[Cliff]

I didn’t realize the https://www.fbcsudbury.org/events/ site’s iCal feed was your site’s — the one you were asking about.

I downloaded that link’s iCal link and noticed this for the first event:

DTSTART;TZID=UTC+0:20170101T103000

I see that UTC+0 in there for the first and other events.

I’d suggest going to your site’s wp-admin > Settings > General and then setting your WordPress timezone to the one you want. Also, you might have timezone-related settings at wp-admin > Events > Settings that should be set also.

Please let me know how this goes for you.

[John Ridneour]

I tried to force the Events Calendar to use ‘America/New York’ time with the github code, but I don’t see a change on the app at least.

More importantly, I changed my Events Settings to use the sitewide timezone and when I change my site timezone under the General settings to ‘New York’ the times are completely off. Do you know why this would occur? I’d like to force it to use the Eastern time zone but when I select New York with UTC-5, the times are not even close to Eastern.

[John Ridneour]

Hi Cliff,

When I change my WordPress site settings to either New York or UTC-5 (I believe the Eastern Time), the times are way off. The only way the times stay correct is if it’s set to UTC+0, which isn’t right.

Any thoughts?
Chelsea

[John Ridneour]

Hi Cliff,

To follow up, if I change my times to UTC-5, it actually subtracts 5 hours from my currently set UTC+0 time. The same thing happens if I set it to the New York time zone. How do I set the timezone without having the change the times of all my events? I ultimately need to set the time zone because I need the iCal feed to ONLY give those times.

Thanks,
Chelsea

[John Ridneour]

Hi,

It looks like the Events Calendar is sending an improper TZID:

(Improper TZID/UTC ‘hybrid’ designation, taken from your our calendar feed)
DTSTART;TZID=UTC+0:20180118T183000
DTEND;TZID=UTC+0:20180118T210000

Instead, I need it to be like this as an Eastern Time Zone:

(Proper TZID)
DTSTART;TZID=”America/New_York”:20170128T000000
DTEND;TZID=”America/New_York”:20170128T000000

How do I accomplish this as well as fix the issue of the times changing improperly when I set it to an Eastern Time Zone?

Thanks,
Chelsea

[John Ridneour]

Hi,

Just checking in. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Chelsea

[Nico]

Hi there Chelsea,

Thanks for following up and really sorry for the delay in our reply 🙁 Cliff assigned this thread to me as he thought I could help you better, and it was out of my radar until I noticed it today. I’ve already review your request and I’ll try to help out as best as I can 🙂

First of all, what you are experiencing in the site is normal. If the timezone is changed, all event start and end date/times will be ‘converted to the new timezone’. Unfortunatelly we don’t have an automated way of changing all events timezones without affecting the event date/time. Hunter suggests a SQL query in this reply to change just that information.

I think that getting the events in your site to the correct timezone and time settings will be the best. In that case you can rely on default behaviour of the iCal feed generator. But there’s also a filter to alter each event information before the iCal feed is printed. This gives you an opportunity to hijack the information there. The snippet below (paste it in your theme’s (or child theme’s) functions.php file) will force a timezone for events without converting it’s date or time:

https://gist.github.com/niconerd/cbbb0e4a5b1494955fa9f61cc58f9a9a

Please let me know if this works for you,
Best,
Nico

[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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