As designed Cron "next run" has wrong time

[ceribik]

I've reproduced this on two different computers. On one of them, I can confirm that the system, php, xenforo public and my xenforo user timezones are all the same (GMT+11).

If you create a cron event that uses the default time settings (midnight every day), or look at any default cron event, they are all set to run 11 hour earlier (note that it's offset by the same amount as the timezone).

E.g. this one is supposed to run at 12:30 AM:

Record Daily Statistics Next Run: Jan 20, 2012 at 11:30 AM

 

[ceribik]

To add to this, all the cron entries which are set to run every x minutes (as opposed to daily) show the correct next run time.

 

[Daniel Thomann]

Can confirm it.. here it's 1:29 PM (UTC+1) and I have this entry:

Rebuild Board Totals CounterNext Run: Jan 23, 2012 at 12:33 PM

 

[ceribik]

Can we get a fix?

I'm waiting on this to complete an addon.

 

[Mike]

Basically, the times entered in the cron are based on GMT/UTC. This creates consistency across systems as it means the same thing anywhere.

There isn't really a "fix" per se. You could argue all sorts of points of view.

 

[digitalpoint]

At the very least, maybe you should specify that it's GMT/UTC on the date/time. If I'm on a site that most every date/time is adjusted to reflect MY date/time, one comes to expect that everywhere on the site.

Personally, I'd like to see it changed to reflect MY time since I'm the one reading it, and for me, THAT would be consistent. If it's actually an issue of consistency, why not have posts/threads reflect GMT/UTC for consistency?

Of course it would be a bigger issue if more people saw it than just admins... but being okay with something simply because most people don't see it also seems a bit silly to me.

For ME it looks like cron entries are failing because the next run time on some of them is 7 hours ago.

 

[ceribik]

Basically, the times entered in the cron are based on GMT/UTC. This creates consistency across systems as it means the same thing anywhere.

The only sort of consistency I see it maintaining is across multiple XenForo installations which for the most part is pointless. If you wanted consistency within a single XenForo installation, I don't see why someone would logically choose to base it on GMT. It should be based off the board timezone. Otherwise, why bother showing it to admins, and making it available to addon developers? It makes it useless to the latter (who need stuff run at specific times) without some hacky code to adjust the timing.

 

[Daniel Thomann]

(...) It should be based off the board timezone (...)

yep I totally agree with that.

 

[Biker]

Basically, the times entered in the cron are based on GMT/UTC. This creates consistency across systems as it means the same thing anywhere.

Consistency for whom? It certainly is not consistent for the Admin. Seriously, what's wrong with this picture?

 

[Daniel Thomann]

I don't know... but I log in as admin with my admin account. this account is loaded and it should have some settings loaded... why don't make use of them? Or use board settings or even a small notice that this is GMT/UTC (I could live with that but I prefer the account based solution)... To make sure the admins can handle the cron job, something needs to be done here...
I mean this is pretty weird... After all if it is as designed, then there should be a Suggestion for the change.

 

[ragtek]

I agree.
This caused me some headache http://xenforo.com/community/threads/time-problems.19543/

 

[Daniel Thomann]

I wanted to give the OP time to post the suggestion by himself.
Since he hasn't, I created a thread in the suggestion forum:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/cron-job-date-time-display-conversion.26495/

 

[Brent W]

Well this ever be considered as something that will change? I still don't understand why you can't/won't use the boards default time zone for crons? What is a scenario where I, as the board owner, will become confused if the boards default time zone is used?

 

[Cyberclaw]

At the very least, please consider adding a warning to the cron settings page, stating that times are based on UTC. That would have saved me a couple of hours of troubleshooting. Before I found this thread, I thought that I had a server issue to sort out.

 

[beerForo]

Is there a suggestion thread for this? Really confusing when you have a cron set to post a thread at midnight and it posts at 7. And we will also have to remember to adjust the cron for DST.

 

[Ozzy47]

Is there a suggestion thread for this?

Yes,

Base all cron jobs off admin settable time and not GMT

Currently cron jobs, if set for a certain hour of the day to run like the Daily Statistics cron, run based off of GMT time. This makes it more of a "24hr statistics" than a "daily statistics" unless you live in the GMT timezone and then you get lucky. Although this isn't the end of the world...

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