iCal TimeZone issue [#582148]

Hi,

I expect this is me missing something obvious. I am having a small issue with some iCal feeds. I manage two Drupal sites, both on different servers.

One is for a local society where a list of events is published using the "Event" module in iCal format. Timezone is set to Europe/London (on both installations). When I create and view an event all is fine, the correct date and time is spot on. I have checked this by viewing the iCal on Mac Cal App and in Google Cal.

The iCal file actually shows the time being an hour out which I assume is due to the timezone / daylight savings. Excerpt from the iCal is shown:

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20090917T202224Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20090928T183000Z
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20090928T200000Z
UID:http://www.mysite.com/node/307
URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.mysite.com/node/307
SUMMARY:William Morris
END:VEVENT

The time of the event was entered as 7.30pm - 9.00pm. As I noted above, on the source website, in Google Cal and in Mac iCal ithis is what is shown.

Now on the other site, which is being used to as a community site, the iCal parser module is being used to process iCal feeds. However, when it displays the information, it is as shown in the file, i.e. 6.30pm - 8.00pm instead of 7.30pm - 9.00pm. An hour out.

I am assuming as it works fine with other software that either I am missing something or the parser is not recognising/processing the timezone.

What I have checked/tried:

1. Both sites timezones set to Europe/London.
2. On site importing iCal, field receiving date has UTC timezone (have tried other options with no luck).
3. Latest releases of all modules.
4. Mapping the time zone over (options->VEVENT->DATE->DTSTART->tz *****Map to ******* field_start_date (date): Timezone.) - see attached

The latter (4), produces the following error:

Fatal error: Call to a member function set_value() on a non-object in /home/thatcham/public_html/sites/all/modules/feedapi_mapper/mappers/feedapi_mapper_date.inc on line 266

Any pointers would be helpful.

Regards,
Nick

Comment	File	Size	Author
	feedapi2.png	33.2 KB	nickbits
	feedapi.png	123.41 KB	nickbits

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Comments

Comment #1

nickbits CreditAttribution: nickbits commented 24 September 2009 at 11:39

Have upgraded to all the latest dev versions for feedapi, event, etc. but to no avail.

Comment #2

nickbits CreditAttribution: nickbits commented 25 September 2009 at 06:27

Hi,

I have now even tried this on a fresh install of Drupal but get the same problem.

I have also followed the tutorial on http://drupal.org/node/341716 but no luck. I have updated my feed mappin to-

title	Map to Title (node)	
description	Map to Body (node)	
options->VEVENT	Map to field_start_date (date): iCal VEVENT

but it still shows 1hour out. i.e. events should start at 7.30pm but are shown to start at 6.30pm.

Nick

Comment #3

ekes CreditAttribution: ekes commented 25 September 2009 at 10:28

Have you read #503338: UTC timezone 'Z' not intepreted (by mapper) and the related changes to the date field mapper (linked in the thread)? Essentially the Z at the end of the date means the time is in UTC so you either have to have the field as UTC and then change it to user timezone on output, or change to the timezone on mapping. Either way it's mapping or configuration not a parser thing.

Comment #4

nickbits CreditAttribution: nickbits commented 26 September 2009 at 11:51

Hi,

Yep, I have I read it and tried various configurations. I ahve tried timezone mapping and got errors. I have set both sites to UTC with no effect, I have tried changing other items but nothing seems to work. What I am going to do now, is scrap everything I have done, put a fresh install on my system after clearing all the caches, and start again and see if I can figure this out.

Nick

Comment #5

nickbits CreditAttribution: nickbits commented 30 September 2009 at 18:02

Status:

Active

» Closed (fixed)

Yeah, got it working. I ahd tried the patch over at http://drupal.org/node/451888 before and it did not work. I assume that I messed it up or did something else wrong. After updating to all the latest DEV releases and applying the patch again, timezone problems are sorted.

Thanks,
Nick

Comment #6

nickbits CreditAttribution: nickbits commented 30 September 2009 at 18:12

Status:

Closed (fixed)

» Active

Hi,

So I spoke too soon. That works fine at present, but there is an event in November and January that still are not showing the correct information. This is after the clocks go back. Again, the iCal feed works fine in other viewers/systems, so I assume it is either the aprser or me doing something else wrong.

Any pointers would be great.

Regards,
Nick

Comment #7

nickbits CreditAttribution: nickbits commented 6 October 2009 at 08:52

Hi All,

Have tried again with a fresh set-up, with the patch times are imported fine, unless they are after the clock go back, for when they show as being 1 hour out. So there is still an issue.

Nick

Comment #8

m4him CreditAttribution: m4him commented 14 August 2010 at 12:01

First of all thank you for the ical parser.
I have had the same issue with the dates marked as zulu dates. I worked 9 hours straight on this thinking it was the way I was using the parser mapping then found this thread. I managed to fix it with the patch. THANK YOU for the patch. Will this fix be in the next release? Is it fix in the 2.0 Alpha? It does not make sense to have a parser that does not parse correctly for ical google feeds. If this just a google issue? It seems that most people would be using this for google.

Thank you again for all your hard work.