Forum: General Topics

Forums / General Topics / Issues with DST and Timezones

 

Subject:Issues with DST and Timezones 

jyates

5:29
Monday
9-Feb-2009

Howdy,

I had a quick search through the forum, and found another thread relating to DST (http://www.trackmyjourney.co.uk/forum/10122_Does_not_adjust_DST/) and noted that you need to make sure you are in the correct Timezone.

My phone is setup to automatically update date/time from the network... which sets the phone time OK, but the GPS time is an hour behind, which I assume is because we're in DST here in New Zealand at the moment. This leads me to believe that the network provider have just fiddled the time and not setup the timezone correctly :(

I then tried to set the timezone manually, but unfortunately, Nokia has decided that the only timezones which exist fall between -12 and +12 GMT... but NZDT (New Zealand Daylight Time) is GMT+13!!

Does anyone have any suggestions or workarounds?


regards,
Jared

ps. I have a Telecom NZ Nokia 6275i. It is a nice little S40, but I am having to use the S60 version of TMJ as the S40 only supports bluetooth GPS, and this unit has builtin GPS.
 

Stephen

18:20
Monday
9-Feb-2009

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Hi Jared,

It sounds like a pretty major oversight by Nokia if they haven't included a way to set the phone to GMT+13 (or at least GMT+12+DST)! Its obviously a completely different phone, but on my SE W910 the Time Zone and Daylight Saving settings are controlled independently. Is there nothing like this on the 6275? ie: set the timezone to +12 and the Daylight Saving to On, which should then give the correct GMT+13 offset. (After changing these you might then need to manually set the time to the correct local time).

I've also just checked in the Nokia S60 emulator and that lists timezones by placename, and it currently correctly has Auckland and Wellington both at +13GMT (though there doesn't seem to be a way of manually changing the DST settings).

One other possibility is if you have a timezone listed for Tonga, which may have the +13 setting?

Any luck?

Cheers,
Stephen
 

jyates

20:11
Monday
9-Feb-2009

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the Nokia 6275i has no way of manually setting or unsetting DST.

It is an S40 (I'm just using S60 version of TMJ because the S40 one doesnt seem to support internal GPS)... and the Timezones are just listed as:

GMT+12
GMT+11:30
GMT+11
....
GMT-11
GMT-12

One thing I did notice is that when I start up TMJ, the time on the POSITION page is correctly set to DST, but has a little * next to it. After about 5 or 6 seconds, the time 'corrects' itself back to GMT+12 (ie. subtracts an hour) and the * disappears.

I might try some of the other versions (ie. S40, 'Generic' etc) of the software and see if I have any luck.

If not, I guess I'll just have to live with it... not a huge deal really.
 

Stephen

0:50
Tuesday
10-Feb-2009

Location:
Surrey, UK

Phone Model:
BB 9800 Torch
BlackBerry 8900
SE W910i
Nokia 5800

Very odd!

(You're right to use the S60 version - as you say, the S40 one doesn't include the internal GPS APIs. The 'time-related' code is the same in all versions so you might as well just stick with what you're using as I'd expect the other versions to give the same behaviour!)

I've just downloaded the Nokia S40 (5th Edition) SDK/Emulator, which admittedly is probably a slightly different version to your phone, but it does have separate settings for timezone and DST, so it looks like they've realised there is something amiss with previous versions and have now rectified it!

When TMJ starts it first 'asks' the phone for the current timezone offset (including DST) that is set on the phone. It then initially uses the phones internal clock (shown with the * sign), which should provide the time in GMT, so when TMJ displays it onscreen it adds the offset to this time. Then after a few seconds when the phones GPS kicks in (or external bluetooth GPS in other cases), it takes the time from that instead, which should also be supplied in GMT. It sounds like there is some odd discrepancy whereby your phone is supplying its internal clocks time with the DST applied, but then the GPS time without the DST (the correct behaviour, according to the Java docs). As you say, its probably not a massive deal, just thought I'd try and explain what I think might be going on...

Cheers,
Stephen
 
 

jyates

1:11
Tuesday
10-Feb-2009

Thanks for that... I won't bother fiddling with the other versions then :)

I'm sure it is probably something in the custom TelecomNZ firmware that is causing the time problem... probably some workaround to get around the phone only having GMT+12...

As you say, TMJ can only display the info it is given: "Garbage in, Garbage out" ;)

Also, before I forget... AWESOME app!


regards,
Jared
 

(You must be logged in to post a reply to this thread)