ical importer time off for events spanning midnight

[Kate]

i just complied a very thorough account of the issue that was wiped by a session error. i’ll just add it to the time i’ve spent time troubleshooting this calendar importer. copy your posts before submitting everyone!

This bug has existed in some form since i installed in December. it needs to be prioritized. please!

We are in UTC -5 and events are being imported both 4 and 5 hours later (i think the 4 & 5 hour difference may have to do with events imported before and after the last update). If those added hours make the event span across midnight (NONE of our events go after midnight) then the times are imported incorrectly.

Based on the forum posts, this a pattern.

IE.
Event in google: Thu, March 24, 6:00pm – 8:30pm (GMT -05:00) Eastern Time (2.5 hours long)
imported event: MARCH 24 -10:00 PM – 11:59 PM (2 hours long)

before the last update, it would have imported past midnight and created a two day event.
This is better than having the wrong dates, but still needs to be fixed.

An event that is from 3-5pm will import correctly.

My WP settings: UTC -5 UTC time is 2016-02-29 18:45:34 Local time is 2016-02-29 13:45:34
Events timezone was set to: use timezones for each event.

Today I:
– deleted problematic event
– optimized database with this plugin as you recommend and removed the trashed event
– changed Events timezone setting to “use site wide timezone for everything”
– reimported that calendar manually to re-create the event
– got the same results.

Also, when I had Use Sitewide Timezone selected, “All Day” events also displayed on the day before it was supposed to happen, so I changed it back to “use timezones for each event.”

here is the public calendar link:
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/lansingchristianschool.org_nfmg9pgqj8jhjfa81kgssfoss0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

and one problematic event;
http://www.lansingchristianschool.org/event/elementary-fine-arts-night/ (has been edited to show correct time)

any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

[Hunter]

Hello and thanks for the post,

Sorry to hear about the iCal Importer troubles. Let’s see if we can get this addressed 🙂

Just to be clear; the event taking place on March 24th titled “Elementary Fine Arts Night” is scheduled to start at 6:00pm and end at 8:30pm, but the start/end times that actually get imported are 10:00pm-11:59, correct?

Respond back whenever you get a chance. I’ll start on some testing and do a little research on the matter. Again, thank you for the post and I look forward to resolving the issue! Have a great day!

[Kate]

Hi Hunter,
Yes that is correct. i have left it unedited in WP so you can see..
here is the link to the HTML google calendar. that is the only event this month.

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=lansingchristianschool.org_nfmg9pgqj8jhjfa81kgssfoss0%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York

Thanks,
kate

[Hunter]

Hi Kate,

Welcome back 🙂

I attempted to import the event and ran into the same issues you described. It appears we have a bug when attempting to import events while the Timezone setting under Settings > General is set using UTC timezones. Try deleting the event, then if possible, run the following SQL query (back up your database before doing so):

DELETE FROM `wp_posts` WHERE post_type = 'deleted_event'

Once you’ve deleted the event from your database, go back to Settings > General and set your Timezone setting to New York, then try re-importing the iCal event. It should import the event with the correct times.

This isn’t an ideal solution, but until we address the problem in an upcoming maintenance release, it is a viable workaround.

Thanks for the patience while I did testing and research on my end and I hope this information helps. I’ve added this forum thread to the logged bug ticket so the developers can reference it when working towards a solution.

Stay tuned to your WP admin and theeventscalendar.com/blog for potential fixes. Have a good week and thanks for choosing PRO!

[Kate]

Thanks Hunter, that did correct the dates on re-import.

Do you see a reason why keeping the setting at New York instead of UTC -5 would be a problem? If it is working correctly? (don’t quote me, but i’m pretty sure elsewhere on this forum it suggested using UTC, which was why I had it set that way)

[Hunter]

Hey Kate,

Glad to hear you were able to get the event to import the correct times 🙂

I don’t think you should encounter any issues when keeping the Timezone setting to “New York”. Just keep an eye on your event import times when Daylight Savings rolls around. Hopefully we have a fix for the issue before then; if not, be sure to check on it.

Thanks for the patience and willingness to work with me on a resolution. Have a good weekend and stay tuned to your WP admin and our blog for a potential fix.

[Leah]

Hello,

Thank you for reporting this issue. We weren’t able to get a fix for it into our upcoming release (4.1). However, please know that the problem is still on our radar and is ticketed within our system to be addressed in a future maintenance release. We’ll do our best to keep you posted when we are able to get a solution in place. Thank you for your patience while we improve and expand our plugins.

Best,
Leah

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[Geoff]

Hey Kate,

Just wanted to follow up and let you know that we released version 4.1.1 last night and it included a fix for this issue. Please update to the latest version if you haven’t already and do let us know if you continue to see any issues from there. 🙂

Cheers and thanks for your patience while we worked on this!

Geoff

[Author]

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