Recurring events showing incorrect time after Daylight Savings Time ends

[Dave]

Hi. On our site at peoplescolloquium.org (the calendar is on the homepage or at /events) recurring events that show up with the correct time before Daylight Savings Time ends this weekend are showing up with the correct time, but the instances after DST ends are showing up one hour beyond the correct time. So, for example, the every Thursday event “Philosophy 101: Discussion” starts at 5:30 in the back end event editor, and at 5:30 on November 2. But, after DST ends on November 5th, all the instances of the event say they start at 6:30pm (for example, the one on November 9). All the recurring events. The only events that are displaying correctly, at the same time before and after DST, are ones that aren’t set with the local (Los Angeles) timezone.

[Andras]

Hello Dave,

Thanks for reaching out and I’m sorry to hear about this issue. Let me try to help you with this.

The events where you have the issue (e.x. Philosophy 101: Discussion), what timezone are they set to? Do they also have Los Angeles? (screenshot)

What is your timezone setting under Events > Settings > General tab > Timezone mode (at the bottom). Is it ‘use local timezones for each event’?

Thanks,
Andras

 

[Dave]

Thanks. The events that aren’t working (they’re still showing up one hour late after Daylight Savings Time), like Philosophy 101: Discussion, are set to the Los Angeles time zone. My WordPress timezone is also set to Los Angeles. The ones that are working, like The People’s Ink: a Contemporary Writing Workshop, are set to UTC + 0 timezone. In Events -> Settings, I do have it set to “use local timezones for each event.”

[Andras]

Dave, thanks for sharing that with me.

That is a bit unusual.

When you have “use local timezones”, then the timings set at the events are being displayed in the front.

If it is set to “sitewide”, then the event time will be converted to the site timezone. (E.x. the event is set up as UTC+0 from 11 am, and site TZ is Los Angeles, then on the front it will show “from 2 am” as that is the difference in winter time.)

Would you be able to send me a full database export? I would like to fire it up and test it. (If you need help with the export, then this plugin should do it.) Probably the file will be too big to upload here, in this case you can share it through some cloud service and give me the link in a private reply.

Thanks,
Andras

[Dave]

This reply is private.

[Andras]

This reply is private.

[Andras]

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[Dave]

This reply is private.

[Andras]

Whoa, okay that is unusual.

Just to be sure, can you please confirm this to me again:

• Please make sure you are using the latest versions of our pluigns.
• Your WordPress timezone under Settings > General is set to Los Angeles (screenshot)
• The timezone setting in TEC under Events > Settings > General tab is set to ‘Use local timezones…’ (screenshot)
• The recurring event has the timezone of Los Angeles (screenshot)
• (Please tick the box to ‘Show timezones’ that might reveal some further information)

If everything is like the above, then it would be great if you could go through our conflict testing guide to see if that uncovers anything.

Cheers,
Andras

[Dave]

I updated everything and confirmed all those settings, but the problem persists. However, having it show the time zones gives some potentially useful info. You can see this in the new event I created that’s having the problems:

http://peoplescolloquium.org/event/test-event/2017-10-14/ shows up as PDT
http://peoplescolloquium.org/event/test-event/2017-11-14/ shows as PST

So, it knows the time zone change happened, but doesn’t keep the time consistent.

Unfortunately, this is a well-used live site, so I can’t just go and start changing themes and disabling plugins to test for conflicts.

New recurring events that don’t straddle the DST switch have the correct time (though I assume they won’t when it rolls back around in spring) so, since this is taking so long to fix, I might just need to recreate all the recurring events starting with their next instance, but clearly that wouldn’t be ideal.

[Andras]

Hi Dave,

I totally understand you don’t want to mess around with a live site.

Would it be possible to make a copy of the site and create a staging site where we could play around?

The case is definitely unusual. I see that you are using the latest plugins, which already has the fixes for this. And I just did some tests again and cannot replicate the issue.

When you create a new recurring event, does that produce the same result? For example if you set up something for October 15, then let it repeat once a month for a couple of months – maybe until April 2018 to get to the next DST change – does that give you the same result?

Note: if you create a private event, then I believe only you will be able to see it in the calendar when you are logged in. Other visitors to your site will not see it.

[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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