iCal Timezone Issue

[cybersprout]

There are several other calendars feeding off of our community calendar iCal feed (https://alexmncalendar.com). For the most part, everything is going swimmingly. However, for one calendar that runs off of the TownNews Blox CMS, all of the events are importing without the timezone applied.

I’m trying to figure out if there is something I can do on my end to help, like The Events Calendar Fix for Outlook.

I tried to do a bit of digging and ran the feed through an iCal tester that noted an error with the timezone data: https://cl.ly/1I2e1W0g1M30

I appreciate any insight! Thanks!

[Cliff]

Hi Rachel.

Could you please clarify which iCal tester you used and what URL you tested?

And are you saying your site’s iCal URL is causing the issue, or are you saying there’s another site’s URL you’re trying to import from that is the issue? If importing, are you using Event Aggregator?

Thank you.

[cybersprout]

Cliff,

Thanks for the response! I used this tool for testing the ical feed from my site: http://icalendar.org/validator.html

The other site is running TownNews Blox CMS and is importing the ical feed from alexmncalendar.com (running The Events Calendar).

[cybersprout]

I noticed something else while digging. The timezone difference is showing up in the ics file for Blox but not TEC.

The Events Calendar: https://cl.ly/0o1I1S2L2x3C

Blox CMS: https://cl.ly/3Q0K1N0Y361E

The objective is to have the Blox CMS import events at the correct time from The Events Calendar. However, I tried importing events from an ics file from Blox CMS to see if the same problem occurs in reverse. It worked correctly. Not sure if that helps, but I felt it was worth mentioning.

[Cliff]

Rachel, please provide the iCal URL and re-state exactly what the problem/issue is so I can be certain to help you resolve your issue as best as I can. Thank you.

[cybersprout]

Sure thing! The goal is to import events from the community calendar (powered by The Events Calendar) into the Voice of Alexandria website (Blox CMS) at the correct time. Right now Blox CMS is importing all events without the timezone applied.

Community Calendar (alexmncalendar.com/events/ical) -> http://www.voiceofalexandria.com/

Something I also noticed, not mentioned in the previous posts, is that The Events calendar is importing the ICS file from Blox with the same starting and ending time for events. I checked the file with https://icsconvert.appspot.com/ and the end time seems to be showing up there.

ics sample file from Blox: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0y2bU1imTGoRE4xd2tKNTlDVGs/view?usp=sharing

Thanks again for the help!

[Cliff]

I noticed this:

• The .ics file from alexmncalendar.com/events/ical has Denver timezone.
• The one from your Google Drive link has Chicago timezone.

If that’s the way you think it’s supposed to be, let’s move forward…

===

You said Blox is importing from alexmncalendar.com/events/ical, but then you said, “The Events Calendar (TEC) is importing the ICS file from Blox with the same starting and ending time for events.”

1. So is Blox importing from TEC and TEC is importing from Blox?
2. Is your TEC site running Event Aggregator (EA) or our legacy iCal Importer?

[cybersprout]

Our calendar should be Chicago timezone: https://cl.ly/271u3f2U1k0q

I click update Timezone button in TEC to be sure. Both calendars should be Chicago timezone.

Would appending the timezone to the end of event details potentially help Blox when importing from TEC? https://cl.ly/0b462H1X3u11

——–

Yes, the imports are going both ways. We’re running the new Events Aggregator.

[Cliff]

The “Show Timezone” option from your 2nd screenshot is only for displaying the timezone on the front-end of your site; it doesn’t alter any of the events’ actual datetime information.

However, enabling that may help you more easily identify the timezone of each event when viewing the front-end of your site.

When I viewed this event — https://alexmncalendar.com/event/open-mic-night-2/2016-11-05/ — it looks like you did end up checking that box. I see it has “UTC-5” timezone. This is a manual/forced UTC offset timezone instead of a city timezone. City timezones are smarter in that they follow daylight savings time (DST).

Also, the timezone can be overridden per event to be something different than the site-wide default in your WordPress General Settings.

I misspoke before that your .ics file has Denver timezone. In fact, the first event in your .ics export is in Denver timezone, which is confirmed by visiting that link — it displays it’s in MDT timezone.

We cannot help with Blox importing/exporting, but we can help with your TEC importing and exporting.

Please let me know what more you think I can assist with here.

[cybersprout]

Cliff, one more question if you don’t mind. When I import from their ics file (the Drive file above), the starting time and ending time is the same in TEC: https://cl.ly/2p2C121O1k2l

I tried importing the same ics file into ICS Convert (https://icsconvert.appspot.com) and it showed up correctly: https://cl.ly/3Z210U1k0y3M

[Cliff]

Thanks for those screenshots. There is currently a known issue with Event Aggregator where event end times are not importing correctly; they’re importing as the event start time.

I’ll mark this ticket as Pending Fix, which means this thread should receive a reply once the applicable fix has been released. I cannot guarantee when it will be fixed as it’s in the development team’s hands now. They need to assign it, code it, test it, and schedule it for release.

I apologize for this issue and appreciate your understanding and patience.

[cybersprout]

Cliff,

I was able to dig up some more info. The other calendar’s support team, which is importing events from our TEC iCal, sent this reply:

The ical file attached does not meet the ical spec for datetimes. It leads with an offset, which I believe needs to be a timezone id. I think it’s seeing the UTC and assigning that as the timezone.

In File:
DTSTART;TZID=UTC-5:20161115T090000
DTEND;TZID=UTC-5:20161115T100000

Expected:
DTSTART;TZID=US-Eastern:19980119T020000

I think they can put an offset if they use another field TZOFFSET such as:
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500

They continue to import events from our TEC without having the timezone applied. Any thoughts? Thanks for looking into this!

[Cliff]

I will share this with the developer assigned to this bug.

Thank you.

[cybersprout]

Cliff, thank you for the reply! I realize this is a tricky question, but do you have an estimated timeline for the fix (clients are asking)? Even a super rough estimate would be helpful, like a fix of this nature typically takes a month. I really appreciate the great support!

[Cliff]

I see this is scheduled, but I can’t give any meaningful expected date. Best I can say is very likely sometime this month (but no guarantees).

Thanks for your patience.

[Author]

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