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Timezone issues in Shout box and Hosting

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Timezone issues in Shout box and Hosting 19/01/2019 at 22:33 #114911
Albert
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1315 posts
Hi,

In my profile I can change the timezone to my local time which is an hour ahead of you - however, using the web site then becomes very confusing. For the forum it works well but in other places times in GMT (or BST if applicable) are unexpectedly found. For instance:

In the shout box: messages received from other users after loading the page, are displayed in British instead of local time. They are changed to local time once I reload the page. Messages that I send myself are in local time regardless. This leads to situations like:
User1: (at 22:32) xxx (new message; GMT displayed)
Albert: (at 21:32) xxx (local time displayed regardless)
User2: (at 22:31) xxx (new message; GMT displayed)
User3: (at 21:30) xxx (existing message; local time displayed)

Upcoming games: starting time of games is displayed in British time regardless of timezone setting.

I am personally fine with the web site set to British time as I am used to adding an hour to the starting time of games anyway, but just thought it'd be good to report these inconsistencies.

AJP in games
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Timezone issues in Shout box and Hosting 20/01/2019 at 05:17 #114917
GeoffM
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6376 posts
The Shoutbox is a known issue with SignalR. While the webpage itself knows who is accessing it, the SignalR-based shoutbox is like a completely independent session with no user information - but only if it manages to "beat" the webpage which is why when you refresh it usually adjusts.

As for the games, well, I'll look into it.

Pedantic point: anything "wrong" is probably GMT (server time), not "British" time, which has summer and winter times.

SimSig Boss
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Timezone issues in Shout box and Hosting 20/01/2019 at 08:47 #114921
Albert
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1315 posts
GeoffM in post 114917 said:
The Shoutbox is a known issue with SignalR. While the webpage itself knows who is accessing it, the Pedantic point: anything "wrong" is probably GMT (server time), not "British" time, which has summer and winter times.
I was under the impression that the server automatically switched to BST, if it didn't then all of Britain would have the Shoutbox issues I described during summer.

AJP in games
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Timezone issues in Shout box and Hosting 20/01/2019 at 09:33 #114922
GeoffM
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6376 posts
Albert in post 114921 said:
GeoffM in post 114917 said:
The Shoutbox is a known issue with SignalR. While the webpage itself knows who is accessing it, the Pedantic point: anything "wrong" is probably GMT (server time), not "British" time, which has summer and winter times.
I was under the impression that the server automatically switched to BST, if it didn't then all of Britain would have the Shoutbox issues I described during summer.
Well exactly, and broadly speaking, they don't. Server is always on GMT (as in fact a large proportion are) and as I already explained, it's not always an issue. Timing.

SimSig Boss
Last edited: 21/01/2019 at 00:07 by GeoffM
Reason: None given

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Timezone issues in Shout box and Hosting 03/04/2019 at 18:25 #117200
Albert
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1315 posts
GeoffM in post 114917 said:

As for the games, well, I'll look into it.

I see this has been corrected, thanks!

(My experience with servers comes from Linux servers, by the way. As far as I know many Linux server admins let their servers run on their own country's local time, especially if the audience is mostly in that country. I understand the fact that SimSig is hosted on a Windows server might make a difference!)

AJP in games
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Timezone issues in Shout box and Hosting 03/04/2019 at 20:03 #117203
clive
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2789 posts
Albert in post 117200 said:


(My experience with servers comes from Linux servers, by the way. As far as I know many Linux server admins let their servers run on their own country's local time, especially if the audience is mostly in that country.
Well, they shouldn't.

Servers should be run on UTC at all times. Applications should either honour the TZ environment variable or, if they are multi-user applications like web servers, also run on UTC but allow the end-user to specify the time zone.

Anything else leads to madness or other issues - I know of at least two instances where the police have broken down the door of the wrong person because logs weren't in the time zone they claimed to be in.

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Timezone issues in Shout box and Hosting 06/04/2019 at 05:34 #117266
Hawk777
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386 posts
Perhaps it would be useful to clarify that Linux always keeps its internal time in UTC; the system timezone setting is nothing more than a default for how to display the time to the user. Windows is annoying in that it insists on setting the hardware real time clock (the battery powered clock that keeps time when the computer is off) in local time, but largely handles time while the system is running sensibly as well, allowing applications to ask for either UTC or local time.

Misconfigurations are always possible, but by and large, it’s up to the application to ask for either local time or UTC, under either OS.

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