Calender event ".ics" show wrong time

[bmac]

I am writing this for my wife who uses DejaOffice on her iPhone (I am a long time DejaOffice/CompanionLink android user). Today she created an event on her calendar and then invited me to the event using the DejaOffice functionality to invite other contacts. On her DejaOffice calendar, the event starts at 7 PM and ends at 9 PM on July 25. I received the event.ics by email, clicked on it to install the event into my Outlook 2013 calendar. The event on my Outlook calendar shows as July 25 starting at 3 PM, ending at 5 PM.

When I duplicated this process on her computer (installing the event into Outlook 2013), it also shows the event starting at 3 PM. Her Windows 7 date and time settings are correct. Her iPhone IOS date and time settings are correct with the correct time zone (Eastern DLS). So the culprit must be a setting in DejaOffice, iPhone version, but I could not locate any specific time or time zone settings within DejaOffice settings.

Her DejaOffice version is 1.8.5. It would be interesting to see if this is happening to others.

[Ben]

bmac - Here are two things to check:

1) Check the time zone on the event in DejaOffice (the Time Zone field will display in the event details view). Is the event time zone set for Eastern or America/New York? If it's set to something else (e.g. GMT), then this would be the problem.

2) Check Outlook's default calendar time zone. You can do this in Outlook by going to File -> Options -> Calendar -> Time Zones. Is the default time zone (first one listed) set to Eastern Time? If not, then this may be the problem.

[bmac]

Thanks Ben.

1) Check the time zone on the event in DejaOffice (the Time Zone field will display in the event details view). Is the event time zone set for Eastern or America/New York? If it's set to something else (e.g. GMT), then this would be the problem.
I did and it was set for GMT 4 America/New York

2) Check Outlook's default calendar time zone. You can do this in Outlook by going to File -> Options -> Calendar -> Time Zones. Is the default time zone (first one listed) set to Eastern Time? If not, then this may be the problem
Outlook (2013) on her PC is using the correct time Zone as well.

The event.ics generated from this exercise show the event as 3 hours earlier - on her PC and my PC after she sends the event.ics to me.

[Ben]

bmac - I sent you a private message on this.

[erikl]

I have experienced a similar problem with events created from ics-files and to test it I have executed the following actions (I am using Office Outlook on my PC, DecaOffice 1.8.6 (894) on the iPhone and using WiFi sync):

1) Manually create an event in Outlook.
2) Create an ics-file for the event from Outlook by selecting the event and then File -> Save as (saved to ics-file).
3) In the ics-file changed the DTSTART and DTEND fields by 4 hours so the two events will not overlap.
4) Imported the modified ics-file to my Outlook. The two events now show correctly in Outlook.
5) Synchronized.
6) Checked two two events in DejaCal. When looking at the details of the event (clicking it in the list view) the one entered manually shows a time zone of GMT+0200 (which is correct, I live in Copenhagen and it is Daylight Saving Time) and the other showing GMT+0000 (which is wrong).

The second event (imported from the ics-file) will show a wrong time in the list view unless I in the General Settings enable TimeZone Shift (which I think should not be necessary). This however, does not change the fact that the event created thru an ics-file has a wrong timezone in DejaCal and also shows the wrong time in the detail view.

I can supply files if you want.

Added information: My Companionlink for Outlook is version 6.0.0.0 (build 6048)

[DJOCTO]

We'll look into it. I'm not sure if we need the file yet.

[Ben]

erikl - It sounds like the time zone info is getting lost after editing/importing the event back into Outlook, so that it syncs over to DejaOffice as GMT (this is why turning on Time Zone Shift moves the event to your local time). I'm not sure why the info is getting lost though. Can you send the files?

[erikl]

Calendar event ".ics" shows wrong time

Test.txtTest1.txt

Here are the files. I hope I got it right. Otherwise tell me.

Please note, that I had to rename the files from *.ics to *.txt in order to upload them. *.ics was considered an illegal format.

The file test.ics is the file generated by Outlook for the event that was manually entered.

The file test1.ics is the file where I have edited the DTSTART and DTEND information and then imported the file into Outlook to generate a new event.

Yes, it seems that the internal information in Outlook is different for events entered manually and for events created through import of an ics-file.

[Ben]

erikl - Hmmm, I can't reproduce any problem with those two events. Both of them import into Outlook correctly, and both sync the DejaOffice correctly, with GMT +02:00 time zone. Can you confirm that you can still see the problem with the same two events?

[erikl]

Well - really sorry to hear that. To check your request I have performed the following:

- Deleted the two events from my Outlook calendar
- Synchronized
- Checked that the events very in fact removed from my Deja Calendar (they were)
- Imported the two events to Outlook using the files test.ics and test1.ics (as sent to you earlier)
- Checked that the two events now appeared in my Outlook calendar. They did at 10-10.30 and 14-14.30.
- Synchronized
- Checked the events in my Deja Calendar. They appear correctly in the list view, but when I click the events they both appear with GTM+0. The reason they appear correct in the list view is I have enabled Time Zone Shift.

So: Now that both events have been created using an ics-file they appear with timezone GTM+0 in the detail view.

Just for the fun I manually created an event from 10.00-10.30 (just like the event from test.ics). Then synchronized and inspected the event in DejaCalendar. It show up correctly in the list view, and looking at the details of it, it had the correct time zone GMT+2.

I enclose three files that are screen dumps of the events from test.ics, test1.ics and the manually entered (named Test Manual).

Test Manual.jpgTest.jpgTest1.jpg

[Ben]

erikl - Alright, I spoke with one of the CompanionLink devs about this. He says that the latest beta version of CompanionLink 6.0 will likely fix this issue. Something to do with the way we were reading the time zone of the manually imported event from Outlook.

You can grab the latest CompanionLink 6.0 beta here:

http://www.companionlink.com/inhouse/

Let me know if this doesn't resolve the issue.

[erikl]

Hi Ben
Yes, that seems to be the solution. I have installed Beta 6 (build 6049). Then I configured "wipe calendar on next sync" and did a sync.

Checking the events from the test they ALL showed GMT+2, both those made by an ics-file and the one made manually. Also, I can now disable the "Time zone shift" and the events still show up in the correct place.

Thanks a lot.

[Ben]

erikl - I'm glad to hear that fixed it. Thanks for the update.