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Default Time Offset (Hours):
Unadjusted Server Time: 05/25/16 10:16 PM

So my server time is PST, so at the time of this writing 2:16 PM
I got a complaint that the message board was showing messed up times, so I looked and the message board was showing:
Unadjusted Server Time: 05/25/16 10:16 AM

I then set the adjacent field to -8 and it went to:
Unadjusted Server Time: 05/25/16 10:16 PM

What the heck ..
Any ideas?


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This is the amount of hours difference between your server time and UTC/GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). It will correct your forum's displayed times to match UTC/GMT times. To provide the correct Time Zone offsets for your users, this number must be accurate.

Example: If your Server Time is currently 8:20 AM and the GMT is 2:20 PM, you would enter "6" in this box to add six hours to your forum times.

---
EDIT:
If your individual user is having an issue with incorrect times when they are logged in, they can easily correct their user account's time display to whatever offset is needed, to get it matching their local time.

If you always wanted to just use your local server time for Guests, you would enter "0" in the admin CP time offset box. Then let your users offset their own times, in their My Stuff > Site Preferences, based on your server's time.

Be aware though, if you have users who have adjusted their time offsets, and you then change your site time offset (from the admin Control Panel), all your user's times will be based on that new time.

Last edited by id242; 05/25/2016 6:36 PM. Reason: clarification

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What you're saying makes sense, however I made an adjustment in the Control Panel as per my original post (Pacific is -8) and the
Current server time went from 05/25/16 10:16 AM to 05/25/16 10:16 PM, which is wrong.
So I set it back to '0' offset, and now it stuck at 05/25/16 10:16 PM. (which is wrong)
I checked and my server time is correct.

As A test I then went into MyStuff and it says:

Current server time is 05-25-2016 10:54 PM
Choose your time offset in hours (..,-2,-1,0,1,2,..):

Now, it says this even though my Server's time is 2:54 P (correct) and the offset in my control panel is 0.
Something is not right.


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On top of what you've already pointed out (and me seeing the same thing first hand about 6 months ago), I believe there may also be a language string error. In UBBT75x's CP, it should read "Server Time Offeset" (as it already does), and in the My Stuff > Site Preferences (User Preferences) it should read as "Forum Time Offset."

A lot of this has been rewritten for UBBT76x series (not merged to ubbcentral's code as of this post).

I did see exactly what you are pointing out. There definitely is an inconsistency in one location, which conflicts with all the other locations that have constant times.


for reference:
UBBT75x uses server time offsets.
UBBT76x uses timezone offsets (UTC)


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So just to be clear...

It's a bug, and there is no known workaround?


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I believe the issues is related just to one page, and how it displays the time.

Posts and other content creation dates should all work exactly as expected.

IIRC, at one point there was a "Current time: ##:##:##" displayed in the footer when debugging mode was turned on. But I dont see that in the code any more. I guess that should be added back. It could be helpful in some situations. Specifically situations like this. lol

I wish I could provide more information on this, but I am also digging through the code and finding things that need to be fixed. This definitly is a bug you're seeing.

Last edited by id242; 05/25/2016 7:57 PM.

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I thought I was the only one seeing this in the 7.5.X and also was looking at the beta version and I was totally confused with this as well. Perhaps some serious thinking and consideration needs to be placed in the time coding. Even though 7.6.0 will be the converting to the UTC standard we should also still have some consideration for the server local time.

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Well, all of the time code in general is being rewritten for 7.6.0 and is not present in the alpha snapshots.


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Originally Posted by JAISP
I thought I was the only one seeing this in the 7.5.X and also was looking at the beta version and I was totally confused with this as well. Perhaps some serious thinking and consideration needs to be placed in the time coding.
JAISP, what you were looking at within the 760 code, were lines from 759 that were commented out while new lines were being written. Those commented-out lines even had developer notes of why they were commented out, and what they were replaced with.


Originally Posted by JAISP
Even though 7.6.0 will be the converting to the UTC standard we should also still have some consideration for the server local time.
The Server's time is pretty meaningless to the end user.

The end user should only ever be presented with two time choices:
• A correct timezone for Unregistered Guests / and what your New Users are defaulted to.
• Registered Members can choose their own local timezone.


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When looking in the 7.6.0 code when I find something I always compair to 7.5.9 code to see what changes where made. If there is an issue and the code is the same I then look back at 7.5.8 and even 7.5.7 pretty much the reason I had stated I think once that the bug or error was back an issue or so.

Any program that has been around a long time and new versions or additions are never started from scratch on a newer rewrite their for sometimes bugs may be present in several versions in areas not so well traveled. Over 80% of all code is recycled in every software and program I have ever seen or written my self, if not there would never be new software releases. I have been coding since 1982 so I speak from experience.

I see your reasoning for UTC in UBB.threads however I still see revelance of the server time too. Even though this is a internationally used product a local website operator would still like to see the server time in the control panel for various reasons especially if his server is sitting only a few feet away from him or her. I'm not saying base the entire software in one or the other but at least have it display on the administrative dashboard for reference as his or her server time may be off for some odd reason. I have had issues with my own servers once in a while as to where my server(s) and it time based systems became off by an hour for unknown reasons even after having my stuff polling NTP Servers.

Now think about that if you have an intrusion issue and you will need to review the server logs themselves and your looking for a log entry of 23:31 20160504 and your server is off and the server log is showing it as 00:31 20160505 as not all countries utilize the spring forward or fall back and your NTP server is not selecting the proper time season for some odd reason as it is polling a time server in a different time zone. That could create an issue. It has for me when a trusted person ripped off my database and my times didn't match from the software log to the server log.

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JAISP, reread my post.

end user != site admin


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Ok, I will just stick to finding bugs.

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Originally Posted by JAISP
Ok, I will just stick to finding bugs.

I like it when you work on bug-finding. It gives us more to work on, and makes the product better for everyone.

+1 to your post smile


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While we're on the subject, relative time is also broken.

Show Relative Timestamps:
This will show timestamps relative to the current time if within 48 hours, such as '5 minutes ago', 'Yesterday @ 2:30'


I tuned this off, then made a post (see the 'time check' and 'time check2' posts)
http://www.game-master.net/pit/ubbthreads.php/forums/125/1.html

Could we get a patch for these time issues? Message board timestamps aren't a 'feature' they are an important core asset and needs to work reliably.



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