Forum clock has changed time?

[BrianHG]

Has anyone else seen their forum clock move backwards an hour just recently?
Is this permanent?

[EEVblog]

IIRC I changed the server tiem last week because it was set to Melbourne time

[wilfred]

What time is it set to now?

[wilfred]

Because it is 15:37 now in Melbourne.

[BrianHG]

The forum tells you your set time at the top left of the web page where it says:

Hello [USER_NAME]
Show unread posts since last visit.
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August 16, 2019, 01:50:28 am

[wilfred]

I'm just saying nothing seems to have changed for me and Sydney and Melbourne are the same time zone.

[Tom45]

Has anyone else seen their forum clock move backwards an hour just recently?
Is this permanent?

Has to do with summer vs. winter time in the two hemispheres. There are 4 different time offsets because of when the time switch over occurs differs between down under vs. here.

Click on Profile and then just above where it says Summary, move your mouse over Modify Profile (it's a button even though it doesn't look like it) and choose Look and Layout.

The Time Offset in use is shown. It's -17 for me right now. Click the auto detect and it will be correctly set for you.

This procedure is necessary 4 times per year to keep the forum time accurate for those of us in the northern hemisphere.

[wilfred]

This is not the time of year the daylight savings time is changed in Australia. No Queensland forum members, a state that does not observe DS time, have reported changes.

If you're correct in suggesting 4 changes per year are necessary for some members then that is just a good reason to set the servers to UTC. Surely that would have arisen as an issue by now.

There must be another explanation.

https://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/facts-and-figures/time-zones-and-daylight-saving

[TheSteve]

+1 vote for the base time to be UTC.

[EEVblog]

+1 vote for the base time to be UTC.

Both myself and gnif (who does all the server admin) are both in Sydney time zone 

[Monkeh]

+1 vote for the base time to be UTC.

I've asked for this before, but it seems one or two people (however important they may be..) not having to change their forum settings or do a little mental math outweighs the majority of the forum needing to alter their offset four times a year.

Really SMF should be able to deal with it, but it doesn't.

[Tom45]

This is not the time of year the daylight savings time is changed in Australia.  ...

My personal experience is that I can go quite a long time before noticing that the forum time disagrees  by an integer number of hours with my local time. For example only about a month or two ago I noticed, and corrected for, the time changes that took place in March and April.

To be right on top of it, the 4 changes are:

Second Sunday in March North America switches to summer time

First Sunday in April, Australia switches to winter time

First Sunday in October, Australia switches to summer time.

First Sunday in November, North America switches to winter time

I used to do quite a bit of business with customers in New Zealand and had to keep up with each transition so that meetings and phone calls took place at the proper times. Now I have the luxury of being able to mostly ignore it.

[wilfred]

+1 vote for the base time to be UTC.

Both myself and gnif (who does all the server admin) are both in Sydney time zone 

Don't you have to change the servers times twice a year now anyway?

[EEVblog]

+1 vote for the base time to be UTC.

Both myself and gnif (who does all the server admin) are both in Sydney time zone 

Don't you have to change the servers times twice a year now anyway?

Don't think I've ever bothered actually.

[TheSteve]

+1 vote for the base time to be UTC.

Both myself and gnif (who does all the server admin) are both in Sydney time zone 

Your forum - your rules.

Although it would benefit roughly 50000 other users.

[Monkeh]

+1 vote for the base time to be UTC.

Both myself and gnif (who does all the server admin) are both in Sydney time zone 

Don't you have to change the servers times twice a year now anyway?

Don't think I've ever bothered actually.

No, you wouldn't have to - it's set to your timezone, including DST changes. Which makes everyone else do it four times a year.

[tooki]

What kind of stupid forum software doesn’t just use UTC internally and then convert it to local time on display?! That’s basically how every OS does things now...

[EEVblog]

+1 vote for the base time to be UTC.

Both myself and gnif (who does all the server admin) are both in Sydney time zone 

Your forum - your rules.

Although it would benefit roughly 50000 other users.

Happy now?

[StillTrying]

The am/pm is the wrong way around for me!
Local Time: August 20, 2019, 12:47:43 am
edit:
Fixed it by setting Time Offset: 1   auto detect set it to -11.
August 20, 2019, 12:56:20 pm

[soldar]

I never check the forum time but now that I check something definitely ain't right. Forum indicated time: 4 AM, my time: 2 PM. 10 hrs difference.

[EEVblog]

I never check the forum time but now that I check something definitely ain't right. Forum indicated time: 4 AM, my time: 2 PM. 10 hrs difference.

You have to set a time offset from UTC in your profile

[soldar]

You have to set a time offset from UTC in your profile

OK. Done. Although I believe I was showing the correct time before this change so I am not sure it is related to UTC, server time or what. And if I may have to change it manually when winter time kicks in again.

If I had the correct time before I should continue to have the right time now because my time zone has not changed. I assume even if the server's time zone is changed that does not affect anything because timestamps would include deviation from UTC.

Not that it is of any major importance.

I have had big problems with my home security camera systems on this account. The cameras seemed to change their time randomly adding an hour here and there and I finally just put the entire system on UTC. Then once I had to explain to the police why the time stamp on the video was two hours off local civil time. The guy was not sure and we had to check sunrise to see the "real" time. 

[Muttley Snickers]

I'm in Melbourne where the forums clock was originally set to which meant that the time was always correct regardless of whether I was logged in or not. With the change to UTC the forums time now shows that it is currently ten hours behind so the +10 offset is only applied when I am logged in, as I mostly read the forum as a guest or signed out this is now horrible. Is this what people elsewhere experienced prior to the change or am I missing something ?.

[StillTrying]

as I mostly read the forum as a guest or signed out this is now horrible. Is this what people elsewhere experienced prior to the change or am I missing something ?.

Yes, that's what is was like around here, half a day difference between logged in/out. It's only 1 hour (BST) difference here now between logged in/out .

[Muttley Snickers]

Bugger, I liked it the way it was before but if it benefits others elsewhere then so be it. Being ten hours in front puts us in a different day so keeping track of new posts whilst signed out is going to be tricky from now on.