Time zone issue for imported events

[nrcaknights]

Events are being imported correctly for our site and, when looking at the event editing details on the admin side, display the correct start and end times. However, all of the events are off by one hour. It seems that although the events being imported have the timezone set correctly to EST, The Events Calendar is displaying them as “America/Tortola” instead of “America/New York”. Since Tortola does not observe daylight savings time, all of the events are being displayed off by one hour.

Under Settings > General, I have the timezone set to “New York”. Under Events > Settings, timezone mode is set to “Use sitewide timezones everywhere”. We currently have two iCal calendars being imported; one with no timezone information set and one with the timezone information correctly set. The one with no timezone information set is correctly displaying the time for all events, but the one with the timezone set is off by one hour. Again, when I look at the edit event details for one of these events the timezone is being displayed as “America/Tortola”. Below is the timezone information and an event from the actual iCal feed:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
METHOD:PUBLISH
PRODID:Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
VERSION:2.0
X-WR-CALNAME:School Calendar
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Eastern Standard Time
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=11
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=2SU;BYMONTH=3
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:[email protected]
SUMMARY:New Student Testing
DTSTART;TZID=Eastern Standard Time:20180120T080000
DTEND;TZID=Eastern Standard Time:20180120T113000
CLASS:PUBLIC
PRIORITY:5
DTSTAMP:20171226T165741Z
TRANSP:OPAQUE
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SEQUENCE:0
LOCATION:Media Center
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-APPT-SEQUENCE:0
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-BUSYSTATUS:BUSY
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INTENDEDSTATUS:BUSY
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-ALLDAYEVENT:FALSE
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-IMPORTANCE:1
X-MICROSOFT-CDO-INSTTYPE:0
X-MICROSOFT-DONOTFORWARDMEETING:FALSE
X-MICROSOFT-DISALLOW-COUNTER:FALSE
END:VEVENT

[Brendan]

Hi there,

Thanks for emailing support and sorry you are having issues with the timezone.

Can you also try testing for conflicts with your theme and other plugins? If you would prefer not to do this on your live site, WP Staging will let you create a quick copy of your live site that you can use for testing. Let me know what you find!

Thanks,
Brendan

[nrcaknights]

I actually set up a completely stock WordPress site, no themes and no plugins, other than The Event Calendar, to test this with. I have included the site information below where you can see that the timezone for the site is set to New York. I have also included a screenshot showing an event with the timezone displayed as American/Tortola.

HOME URL
http://localhost:8888
SITE URL
http://localhost:8888
SITE LANGUAGE
English
CHARACTER SET
UTF-8
NAME
admin
EMAIL

INSTALL KEYS
event-aggregator = 810e################################1522
events-calendar-pro = d4f6################################f1d9
WORDPRESS VERSION
4.9.1
PHP VERSION
7.1.8
PHP
max_execution_time = 300
memory_limit = 256M
upload_max_filesize = 32M
post_max_size = 32M
display_errors =
log_errors = 1
SERVER
Apache
SAPI
apache2handler
PLUGINS
The Events Calendar PRO version 4.4.19 by Modern Tribe, Inc.(http://m.tri.be/20)
The Events Calendar version 4.6.7 by Modern Tribe, Inc.(http://m.tri.be/1x)

NETWORK PLUGINS

MU PLUGINS

THEME
Twenty Seventeen

MULTISITE

SETTINGS
schema-version = 4.6.7
recurring_events_are_hidden = exposed
previous_ecp_versions =
Array
(
[0] => 0
)
latest_ecp_version = 4.6.7
last-update-message-the-events-calendar = 4.6.7
disable_metabox_custom_fields = hide
tribeEnableViews =
Array
(
[0] => list
[1] => month
[2] => day
[3] => photo
[4] => map
[5] => week
)
pro-schema-version = 4.4.19
earliest_date = 2017-12-14 00:00:00
earliest_date_markers =
Array
(
[0] => 11
[1] => 12
)
latest_date = 2018-03-27 22:00:00
latest_date_markers =
Array
(
[0] => 384
)
donate-link =
postsPerPage = 10
liveFiltersUpdate = 1
hideSubsequentRecurrencesDefault =
userToggleSubsequentRecurrences =
recurrenceMaxMonthsBefore = 24
recurrenceMaxMonthsAfter = 24
showComments =
showEventsInMainLoop =
eventsSlug = events
singleEventSlug = event
multiDayCutoff = 00:00
defaultCurrencySymbol = $
reverseCurrencyPosition =
embedGoogleMaps = 1
geoloc_default_geofence = 25
geoloc_default_unit = miles
embedGoogleMapsZoom = 10
debugEvents =
tribe_events_timezone_mode = site
tribe_events_timezones_show_zone =
tribe_aggregator_default_update_authority = overwrite
tribe_aggregator_default_post_status = publish
tribe_aggregator_default_category =
tribe_aggregator_default_show_map = no
tribe_aggregator_default_import_limit_type = range
tribe_aggregator_default_import_limit_range = 7776000
tribe_aggregator_default_import_limit_number =
tribe_aggregator_default_csv_post_status =
tribe_aggregator_default_csv_category =
tribe_aggregator_default_ical_post_status =
tribe_aggregator_default_ical_category =
tribe_aggregator_default_ical_show_map =
tribe_aggregator_default_ics_post_status =
tribe_aggregator_default_ics_category =
tribe_aggregator_default_ics_show_map =
tribe_aggregator_default_facebook_post_status =
tribe_aggregator_default_facebook_category =
tribe_aggregator_default_facebook_show_map =
tribe_aggregator_default_gcal_post_status =
tribe_aggregator_default_gcal_category =
tribe_aggregator_default_gcal_show_map =
tribe_aggregator_default_meetup_post_status =
tribe_aggregator_default_meetup_category =
tribe_aggregator_default_meetup_show_map =
tribe_aggregator_default_url_post_status =
tribe_aggregator_default_url_category =
tribe_aggregator_default_url_show_map =
tribe_aggregator_default_url_import_range = 2592000
tribe_aggregator_default_url_import_event_settings = no
tribe_aggregator_disable =
WP TIMEZONE
America/New_York
WP GMT OFFSET
-5
SERVER TIMEZONE
UTC
WP DATE FORMAT
F j, Y
WP TIME FORMAT
g:i a
WEEK STARTS ON
1
COMMON LIBRARY DIR
/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/the-events-calendar/common/src/Tribe
COMMON LIBRARY VERSION
4.7.3

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by nrcaknights.

[Brendan]

Hi There,

This is extremely weird. What happens when you click on the link Timezone: America/Tortola? Does it give you the option to switch it there. Can you take a screenshot of what you see after you click the link?

Thanks,
Brendan

[nrcaknights]

I’m not at my computer right now, but yes, when I click the link it allows me to change the time zone. If I change the time zone to New York, all of my events display with the correct time.

After more investigation, I’m guessing that the issue is happening when the Aggregator plugin is importing the events. For some reason it is a signing the incorrect time zone to the event when it is being created.

[nrcaknights]

After further research, I can confirm that events are being imported/created with the Aggregator plugin with the timezone set as America/Tortola. After doing some queries in the database, I found that all of the events imported from the feed provided above are being created with “_EventTimezoneAbbr” set to “AST” and “” set to “America/Tortola”. I did a mass find and replace for all of these events and changed them to “EST” and “America/New_York” and all of the events are now displaying correctly. Obviously this is a temporary solution since any new events will be created with the wrong timezone.

It seems like the Aggregator plugin is interpreting the iCal feed incorrectly and assigning the wrong timezone to the event. For reference, here is the timezone portion of the iCal feed:
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Eastern Standard Time
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=1SU;BYMONTH=11
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:16010101T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=2SU;BYMONTH=3
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE

I either need some information on where the timezone is interpreted and inserted into the event post or a hook that can be used to check each event post being created so I can check the timezone and adjust as required.

Thanks,
Doug

[Brendan]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the feedback. Can you upload the ics file here so I can take a look at it?

Thanks,
Brendan

[nrcaknights]

Sure, attached is the file.

Doug

[Brendan]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the file. This seems like a bug. I have tried to import it and got the same issue. After some searching I found two other customers with the same issue. We have created a bug ticket to get this fixed. As soon as the timezone has been fixed, we ill inform.

Thanks for your patience.

Brendan

[nrcaknights]

Thanks of the update Brendan. Any idea when this fix might be released?

Doug

[Brendan]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for your patience. Its a pending fix and devs are aware, just unsure on the timeframe. Its high priority so we will let you know as soon as its resolved.

Thanks,
Brendan

[nrcaknights]

Just following up on this issue. I’ve seen a couple of updates come out, but this doesn’t seem to be fixed yet. Any idea when we might see this land in a release version? I’m currently having to search my database everyday for “America/Tortola” and change it to “America/New_York” to work around this issue.

Thanks,
Doug

[Brendan]

Hi Doug,

Thank you for your patience. Its still in the works and unfortunately I do not have info on when it will be released.

We will email you as soon as its fixed.

Thanks,
Brendan

[Victor]

Hi Doug!

Just wanted to share with you that a new release of our plugins is out, in which this issue is no longer present.

Find out more about this release → https://theeventscalendar.com/maintenance-release-for-the-week-of-27-may-2018/

Please update the plugins and let us know if it works for you.

Best,
Victor

[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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