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Timezone problems

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:07 pm
by Metfan
Hi. I'm from Mexico, and I'm trying to sync my calendar with my WM2003SE, but when ir tries to sync the calendar, appears a message that the time zone of my PC is different from my device, but the time zones are configured correctly, America/Mexico -6. My device OS is Windows Mobile 2003 SE in SPANISH and my PC is XP in ENGLISH. I checked the log files in my Desktop, and it says:

"UTC 09/10/2006 15:49:53::0460 ERROR: Time zone are different on device (offset = -360) and desktop (offset = -300) (GetLastError = 0)"

the 360 offset are hours? minutes? what's wrong?

Metfan

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:02 pm
by Birdy
Hi,

The times expressed in the traces are in minutes and give you the time zone offset compared to UTC time. But it seems there is a problem with the mobile time zone: because of daylight saving time, the offset should be -5 (because of the +1hour). So the desktop mentioning -300 is correct. The device is not with -360.

I tried to set the clock on a Windows 2003 mobile with GMT -6 Mexico, but it doesn't seem to give the correct hour. :? It's one hour back in time, without taking the daylight saving time into account. So there maybe a problem with Windows Mobile 2003... I tried with Windows Mobile 5.0 and there is no problem.

Perharps you could try to put another timezone on your mobile, like Central US which seems to give the correct hour with the right time zone offset. But be carefull with daylight saving time: you should check that on the 29th of October, it properly changes the hour (-1 hour).

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:12 pm
by Metfan
That's correct. Doing that help me with the problem. Maybe it would be a good idea to identify this errors and doing an automatic workaround... what do you think about it?

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 10:25 pm
by Birdy
We need to have the same global time zone on the mobile and the deskop but I don't think we could change the mobile global time zone without the authorization of the user, since it could potentially change the times of its appointments for instance... So an automatic workaround would be difficult. But I could add en entry in the FAQ or maybe display a warning at installation time if Windows Mobile 2003 is detected with a Mexico time zone.

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:25 am
by Metfan
Mmmm, but that does not resolve anything. What about a checkbox to enable/disable timezone cheking? I don't work with appointments with different timezones, and maybe it would be a common need. What do you think about it?

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:00 am
by Birdy
Sorry, even if you don't work with time zones, the checking is necessary to avoid potential problems. At least if you want to have the same times for your appointments on your mobile and your desktop and have your recurring appointments properly managed...