Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 19:23:30 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199811070023.TAA00226@news.cis.ohio-state.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: news.cis.ohio-state.edu: news set sender to nobody AT cis DOT ohio-state DOT edu using -f From: timezone-warner AT cis DOT ohio-state DOT edu To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Subject: timezone set wrong/clock too fast Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com This is an automatically generated message. You should get this message only once. (Unless you change your From: line, which is saved for one month to weed out duplicate messages.) This message does NOT mean you need to repost your message. You are getting this message because you posted to Usenet an article with an implausible Date:. The Message-ID of this article is <3643A849 DOT E0251928 AT gmx DOT net> . The message was posted to the following newsgroup(s) and Subject: Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: RHIDE, Debug and long long ints This article was posted with a Date: header of: Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1998 00:54:17 -0100 which converted to GMT is Sat Nov 7 1:54:17 GMT 1998 However, it arrived on this system on Sat Nov 7 0:23:29 GMT 1998 which is EARLIER than the posted date by 1.51 hours. In other words, the article said it was posted 1.51 hours AFTER it got here. This could mean one of several things: 1. Your system's timezone information is set wrong. Look at the Date: line above. There is a number or timezone indication at the end. (for example, -0800 is US/Pacific time) This date should reflect the local timezone, or at least the timezone offset for the time portion of the Date above. 2. Your system clock is set wrong (less likely). (Check AM/PM?) 3. Your system's timezone and clock is correct, but your news software is configured incorrectly. (it either doesn't get the timezone correctly from the system, or didn't convert it to a correctly formatted date) 4. Your operating system is configured to correct for daylight savings and it shouldn't, or vice versa. What can you do? That depends on your system, and what the problem is. I suggest forwarding this message to your local support staff, news administrator, or system administrator. They should be able to help you diagnose and correct the problem. Here are some common situations: DOS/Windows 3.x, or 16-bit programs under Windows 95: If you are using a PC-based newsreader, first check your own environment. PC clocks often do not automatically adapt to daylight savings time. You may need to configure this manually. Many PC software packages default to PST (US/Pacific) timezone, and need to be adjusted if you live elsewhere. You should also check the timezone configuration in your newsreader *as well as* in your operating system (if it has any such method) For example in DOS/Windows you add a "SET TZ=" statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT. For a good description on how to do this, see http://www.ufaq.org/navcom/settz.html or http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~barr/settz.html For Windows 95, Microsoft NT, and MacOS, there is support for timezone identification in the operating system, which is settable by a control panel. Native applications should understand how to access this information. If you're running 16-bit Windows programs they probably won't - upgrade to the 32-bit version if you can. Be aware that if you try to diagnose the problem you may be confounded by news readers which automatically converts Date: headers when viewing articles. You may post an article and the date looks perfecty correct, but that is because the software converted it back to what it thinks is the local timezone. Often the only way to see the true Date header as it is on the news system is to save the article to a file and view the file contents with a file viewer/editor. NOTE to those NOT located in the following US timezones: PST, PDT, MST, CST, CDT, EST, EDT. The standard for Usenet messages (RFC 1036) and the standard for Internet email messages (RFC 822) specify that only these timezones NAMES may be used in Date: headers. If your software is generating a Date: header with a timezone name not in this list (or GMT), then it's non-compliant. The use of all timezone names have been deprecated in favor of numeric offsets. (+1100, -0500, etc) Why should you care? 1. It is likely that if the Date header is incorrect in your Usenet postings that it will also be incorrect in your email messages too. (especially if you use the same software for news and email) 2. It can be confusing to people who read your posts or your email. News readers usually sort articles by date (some mail readers can too). If this date is wrong, then the sorting will be wrong. Articles may be read out of their normal chronological sequence, even if your newsreader performs threading. 3. Lots of statistics generated by Usenet sites relies on the Date: header to provide a fairly accurate representation of the time the article was posted. If this time is wrong, the statistics can be wrong by as much as nearly a day!. This program It's possible that due to an incorrectly formatted or forged From: address you are getting this message in error. I apologize if this is the case. This program has been run off and on every few months for about two years now. The intent is not only to raise public awareness about this problem, but to put pressure on software companies who write programs and operating systems which don't understand simple long-understood concepts like timezones. This program is run from a computer which is synchronized with universal time via NTP, and is always within milliseconds of the correct time. Please don't bother emailing saying my clock is wrong. It is not. Please reply to the address below. I apologize that this mail is in english. Unfortunately there is no standard for determining the language of a person's Usenet post. For more information, including references to a list of programs to set your clock automatically via the Internet, see: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~barr/timezone.html Thanks. David Barr Sysadmin/News admin/Postmaster v3.3