Since I upgraded my site to Jomsocial 3.2.1.3, I've experienced issues with events. Both the event errors are related to Timezone settings on both the client and the server and I believe the is an bug in the logic with Timezones in the 3.2.1.x versions.

Issue #1: Server timezone set to America/New York results in Events becoming "Past" before they start (note: time set in WHM in the "Server Time" configuration) which results in events not being visible in the front end even though they have not started yet (does that make sense?).

This only occurred since the 3.2.1.3 upgrade on my server. I raised this issue before in the Forums with the result being that the server timezone needed to be set to UTC which I never had to do in the past. To me this is a bug. I should be able to have my server correctly set to America/New York.

http://www.jomsocial.com/forum/events/19288-events-become-past-before-event-start-time

Issue #2: Client machine timezone set to Eastern Time results in event dates changing when editing an event. The event date is set to one day prior than the event date when the event is opened. I can replicate this on both Mac and Windows using Firefox, Chrome and Safari. I can also replicate this not only on my server but also demo.jomsocial.com. Setting the Client machine timezone to GMT results in everything working as designed.

I have just marked this forum topic as resolved but it is not.
http://www.jomsocial.com/forum/events/19534-editing-event-changes-event-date

In my opinion, both the server and client machines should be able to have the local timezone set and Jomsocial should be able to handle these cases. I am starting this topic related to the timezone bug I am seeing on both the server and client sides. I have reset my server's timezone to America/New York and have also set my clients back to Eastern US time zone.

Bob

Hi, Bob

Timezones in Events doesn't do anything, doesn't influence or automatically fix date according to user timezone (set in Joomla! account). This is just an information to what timezone event applies. So creating an event user should set exact date and time in timezone it occurs.

Events are marked as ongoing 23 hours before they start to cover timezone differences.

We both ware struggling with "one day" issue while editing events.... you replicated it but I can't. I wonder if it's related with operating system as I'm on Linux. Also this issue was reported only by you since we mentioned it on our blog few months ago.

Please, upgrade your site to latest version of JomSocial -> 3.2.1.5 so we can eliminate the possibility that this fault has been fixed in the current version.

What? Is this really the level of support I have paid for? The server is 3.2.1.5. I expect ijoomla support to be able to support all platforms not just Linux. So now I need to have all clients and servers be Linux in UTC timezone. Really? I will let my customers know that we only now can support Linux operating machines on our website if you want to take part in any event at our bicycle shop.

Do me a favor. Get a windows machine. Set the timezone on the machine to east coast US. Then go edit an event and let me know what happens. Now, get a Mac, set the time zone to east coast US and let me know what happens.

Since Jomsocial of late has been failing me with annoying bugs causing my users to not use my system, I've been looking at other options for events. On the exact same server I am able to use other event software (JEvents) with timezone settings set as they should be on the same exact machine that I do my Jomsocial on, with absolutely no problem. Go ahead, install JEvents. It's free and it works including timezones.

THERE IS A BUG IN JOMSOCIAL RELATED TO HANDLING OF TIMEZONES. iJoomla needs to own up to it and stop passing the blame. I will gladly install other event based software on my server and demonstrate how they correctly handle date/time and timezone. JS does not and editing of events.

If you want help, I am here. I've been a fan of JS since the Beta days and have faithfully purchased and used it ever since on my production site for years. If you're going to pass it off as the OS is not handling dates correctly, than that is a sad, sad story to tell.

Bob

Due to another bug with my system and JS 3.2.1.5, I've been forced to downgrade my site to 3.2.1.3. When I get a chance I'll get a test site up so 3.2.1.5 is on there. the good news is this bug is in both versions of JS if anyone wants to take a look.

I can further pinpoint item #2's issue with client timezone settings changing the event date in the front end.

Editing events changes the date only in timezones that are minus GMT (aka. -1 GMT, -2 GMT, -3 GMT, etc.). Any client timezone that is GMT or + GMT does not have an issue editing events in the front end where the date changes to the day previous.

Bob

Hi, Bob.

I'm afraid you misunderstood - I haven't say that "only Linux is supported" but just that I use it as my operating system, that's all.

I've set my time zone in Joomla! to Los Angeles and now I'm able to replicate this issue. In my case when editing event start and end date are changed to current day number...

So I'll report this bug to our developers. It seems it applies only to PDT... I had before EDT and couldn't replicate it.

As for for timezones setting in event I already explained - they are just information and will not change (recalculate) event start/end dates automatically.

Hi, Bob.

Date fields can't display date in past. So every time event is loaded in edit mode and date is in past wit will be set by default in present.
To prevent that we locked that start and end fields for event when it's ongoing or marked as past.

Please, do a safe copy of this file:

ROOT/components/com_community/templates/default/events.forms.php

Then replace original with file form package.