Arizona: PC Time vs Optimus Time

[jefboyardee]

This one almost got me fired: If I set an appt for 8am on the Google Calendar, it comes up as 9am on my Optimus. If I set it for 8am on my Optimus, it comes up as 7am on my PC.

I?m in Arizona, the only state that ignores Daylight Savings time shifts, and I don?t remember having this problem until a few days ago -- right after the spring shift. So I set the Google time zone to mountain and that agrees with the phone.

Now, everything I already have is off, but that can be fixed. Then, come October or whenever it is you guys futz with your clocks, I?ll have to tell Google I moved to California or somesuch.

Is there a way that these calendars can just do what I tell them and not argue about what time it is?

 

[jefboyardee]

I’m being crazified: switching back to AZ time like it keeps nagging me to, new entries agree but everything that use to agree doesn’t. Makes me think I’ve just invented a problem, but it won’t quite go away.

 

[Hawaiian_Geek]

I'm having the same problem using the Google Calendar and I'm in Honolulu, Hawaii. We don't observe daylight savings time too. Some of my appts. don't even show in my Google calendar on the pc....go figure....now I have to make sure I have appts. marked in a real life calendar....

 

[jefboyardee]

Another yay it’s not just me... I’ve erased my future and tried to find a way, a time zone that works. But, back in AZ time, I make an 8am appt and have it repeat every day, it shows as 8 on the phone for one week, the jumps to 9 all by itself.

Completely useless. Calendars shouldn’t care what time it is, they should just show what we tell them to. I’m being helped to death...

 

[DoesItMatter]

I'm using GMT-Arizona but events scheduled after DST move one hour later on my phone calendar - Calendar Help

Check that out

It might not be the phone - it may be Google Calendar itself that is changing the times.

 

[jefboyardee]

it may be Google Calendar itself that is changing the times.

I agree. Google is is biting off more than they can chew.

Try this: enter an appt for 5pm today that repeats every Saturday for a few months. On my phone it shows correctly for two weeks, then the remaining appts jump to 6pm.

That trial was preformed set to AZ time. I switched to Pacific time and it does the same damn thing.

And if do this from the phone, it shows correctly for two weeks on the PC then jumps to 5pm.

I would love to be the idiot here but I don’t think I (we) am (are).

 

[jefboyardee]

I created an appt on my PC called that runs from midnight to 1am every day for the rest of eternity. It starts March 6, a week before the time shift. On my PC it stays at that time forever.

On the Optimus, March 6-12 shows it at 1am. On March 14, the day after the shift, it shows correctly. But here’s the mystery: on Mon Apr 4, it shifts back to 1am, and stays there until Oct 31, when it shifts back to midnight. But it only stays there for a week, when the next time change throws it back to 1am. And on and on.

This is not the miracle of technology, this is insanity -- why does a calendar need to know what time it is anyway? And if it does, why can’t my PC and my phone get together? Their clocks both show the same time right now.

I apologize for talking to myself, but no one has fixed me so I’m babbling.

 

[jefboyardee]

So I googled this (for lack of a better term), and Google vs Android time problems appear going years back. Some posts said that certain droids behave while others don’t. I guess I have to visit the local Sprint service center and show them my trick, unless someone has a better solution...

 

[sfhub]

On the Optimus, March 6-12 shows it at 1am. On March 14, the day after the shift, it shows correctly. But here’s the mystery: on Mon Apr 4, it shifts back to 1am, and stays there until Oct 31, when it shifts back to midnight. But it only stays there for a week, when the next time change throws it back to 1am. And on and on.

It sounds like the software on the Optimus is in part or completely using the old (prior to 2007) DST rules.

Prior to 2007 DST started 1st Sunday in April and ended last Sunday in October.

Also it sounds like making a repeating appointment on Optimus might be setting up multiple single appointments, recording the absolute time in seconds since epoch, rather than creating a repeating "localtime" entry. The difference being the latter would set up a single entry that said 12am-1am localtime. The former would essentially say, Mar6midnight+0hrs appt 1, Mar6midnight+24hrs appt 2, Mar6midnight+48hrs appt 3, etc. The thing is, +24*N hrs might not be midnight anymore for the localtime because of DST rules. Now I don't know if this is just a display issue or they actually encoded the times for your appointment in this way. They could have done it either way and you'd have to investigate further to figure out what they did.

 

[jefboyardee]

You might be right about repeating events, but the problem isn’t confined to that: my PC and Optimus agree that it’s 0755. I make an appt for 0830 on the PC. It shows as 0930 on the Optimus.

I’m taking this thing back. No idea what to get or which ones can tell time, but this one has made itself useless.

 

[jefboyardee]

Oh. My. God. I found an app that addresses this directly. All I have to do is tell it I?m near Phoenix and every appt shows up at the right time, same as the google calendar. The only problem is every time I power off/on or do something I haven?t done yet, it forgets and I have to start over. I?d prefer having to do that over throwing the thing out the window.

Far as I can tell, it?s actually an LG and/or Android shortcoming, not a Google. Anyway, if you?re interested: Time Zone Changer

 

[Hawaiian_Geek]

^^^Thanks! I'll try it out and see what happens.

 

[sfhub]

From the symptoms you posted I think it is actually multiple problems. I believe at least some parts of the Optimus S Android release is compiled with old pre-2007 DST rules and also Sprint is setting the timezone to something other than Arizona (Mountain/noDST) to compensate for various phone models not having the right rules for Arizona not observing DST. The first problem is LG/Google's Android build. The 2nd problem is Sprint's kludge.

 

[TucsonDirect]

Oh man do i know your pain, the best solution...... Write it on your hand... lol Never fails, just remember not to wash your hands, so you dont forget that you shouldnt wash your hands tie some string on your finger

 

[jefboyardee]

I’ve had GPS off so as to not eat the battery, but I’m going to leave it on tonight -- perhaps Spirit needs to know where the phone is to determine my time zone. In any case, at least I found a kludge that gets me through.

 

[jefboyardee]

You right, my GPS experiment did nothing. Someday I’ll drag this to a service center and show them the unbearable torment and suffering they’ve caused. Until then, I’m sticking with the kludge.

 

[jefboyardee]

Just for the record, I did take it the local Sprint Repair Store and they said -- you guessed it -- that it was Google’s fault and good luck getting their attention and they recommend the kludge I already found. Pretty slick operation, making everything that goes wrong someone else’s fault.

 

[Hawaiian_Geek]

^^^Thanks for your efforts.

 

[suzannephx]

I went back to Sprint and got the same old "hmmm, never seen this before" response. They were kind enough to offer to waive the restocking fee if we wanted to choose different phones. I started doing more research because I wanted to find a calendar app that would bypass the stock calendar in the phone and sync directly with Google. I found it! Calengoo - it's a paid app, and I was extremely reluctant, but the reviews have been great. I even emailed the developer and got a very quick response - within a day - explaining that there is a setting for AZ time zone and also that you can customize it to bypass the Android calendar and sync directly with Google. Yay!

The support for this app is remarkable. If you find a bug or can't figure something out, just email and the developer will walk you through it or fix it. S/he even said that if I couldn't get it to work right they would refund my money. That alone convinced me to give it a try.

The Google sync default is not a push like it is with droid, it's every few hours, but it's simple to sync manually anytime. Although I hate that I had to pay even more to get my phone to work right, it's the best $6 I have spent in a while.

Also, some boards had suggested TimeZone Changer - I don't recommend it. Yes, it fixes the problem, but only temporarily. It randomly shuts off several times during the day, so at any given time I had to restart it before doing anything in my calendar. Way too clunky.

 

[jefboyardee]

Although I hate that I had to pay even more to get my phone to work right, it's the best $6 I have spent in a while ... Also, some boards had suggested TimeZone Changer - I don't recommend it.

I don?t either, but I ain?t dishing out six bucks to fix someone else?s problem. As for its goofiness, I just made a half-hour appt called 5555 that occurs every Sunday morning at 5. So when I open the calendar on week view, I can tell right way if it?s behaving -- 5555 will show at 5.