hi, my members are complaining that there occurs a time difference when they are reading as guests and when they read posts as members..

concretely, it's a 2 hours difference and very anoying to them.. I dont see the problem myself but had to ask, thanks in advance if anyone could clarify this for me =)

Thanks for reading this tutorial about timezone management

Hello,

This sounds like an issue with time zones. I dont know what time zone you live in or which one your members live in, but the time you see on the forum depends on 2 things, the 1st one, is if you are viewing as a guest, is the forum's default timezone (you set this in: ACP(Admin Control Panel) > General > Forum > Configuration > General > System Timezone : ) and the 2nd, if you view the forum as a member, is the timezone your members have set in their profile (they can set this in their profile (edit profile) by going to the 'Preferences' tab, finding 'timezone' and then selecting their timezone in the drop down box). The forum's default timezone (the one you set in the admin panel), is the one is displayed to guests and usually based on the forum owner's timezone or the forum's most common timezone. If members live in a different timezone then that selected in the admin panel and they view the forum as guest, then yes, obiviously the times are going to be different. Once they login to their account, the timezone they set in their profile takes over and is what is shown to them. Unfornatelly, unless all the members on a forum live in the same time zone, which is un common, there is really little you can do to have the times match perfect for everyone, as if members live in several different zones, everyone in a timezone not selected as the forum's default timezone, will be in correct to their timezone.

Hope this helps provide clarity on how timezones work and how they can cause this issue,
-Brandon

yes, but what about the guests, they dont have "preferences" on the forum they showed me screenshots and its not their computer time either :_|

Guests will only see the time zone that the whole forum is set to.

I really dont want to bug you, but my members are a bit disatisfied

please take a look down right on the computer, on the thread "Pritužbe" - as a Guest



and here Logged in, where the post on the thread "Pritužbe" is two hours displaced

Your forum's time zone does not change for guests.  They will only see what you have set for the whole forum in the administration panel.

AP > General > Forum > Configuration

Hello,
 
This is not a technical problem nor a bug. For the upgrade from PHP 5.5 to PHP 5.6 and because the TimeZones management system by PHP have no fixed ID, we made some changes to the existing system.
 
This change is completely transparent for most forums. However, following the limits of PHP ID, some users are left with IDs that have no match in the new system. In this case, the system assigns the UTC Timezone by default which may cause a difference between the time perceived as a guest (default time forum) and time perceived once connected (user profile time). Everyone is free to change it later according to he's preferences.

We apologize for the inconvenience

The Godfather wrote:Hello,
 
This is not a technical problem nor a bug. For the upgrade from PHP 5.5 to PHP 5.6 and because the TimeZones management system by PHP have no fixed ID, we made some changes to the existing system.
 
This change is completely transparent for most forums. However, following the limits of PHP ID, some users are left with IDs that have no match in the new system. In this case, the system assigns the UTC Timezone by default which may cause a difference between the time perceived as a guest (default time forum) and time perceived once connected (user profile time). Everyone is free to change it later according to he's preferences.

We apologize for the inconvenience

aha! so it's solved now?

The godfather was just explaining that the issue is that your users timezones are probably different then the one set as the forum default time zone in the ACP. As a guest, the time zone that is set by default for the forum (in the admin panel) is what will show for all guests. When a user is a member and they log into their account, their time zone (that they set in the profile) shows and therefore the right time for then displays.

As I said, there is really no way to fix this perfect for everyone, if someone is in a different time zone then the one set as the forums default time zone and they view the forum as a guest, the timezone will automatically be wrong for them, because the forum will display the default forum timezone to them.

Your users need to understand that there are many different timezones all over the world and that there are users on the web from all over the globe, it is impossible to have it match all those time zones and show them the correct time zone, when viewing the forum as a GUEST.

-Brandon