MMM-CalendarExt3 BST Timezone issue

[shall_]

@sdetweil yes i copied each url straight from my config file.
I tried opening them in the browser, it downloaded as described but is still an empty file.

I found a work around by just downloading the ics right from google calendar, this is an example of one of the events. with the timezone tied in.

RPi timezone is set to GMT +1 Europe/London (BST)

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Work
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20170626
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20170701
RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY;WKST=MO;UNTIL=20190331T235959Z;INTERVAL=2;BYDAY=MO
DTSTAMP:20240403T224236Z
UID:15dcXXXXXXujb@google.com
CREATED:20171216T163405Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190330T214112Z
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Earlies
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
END:VEVENT

[shall_]

@sdetweil this is another entry added this week with the issue.

BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240402
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240403
DTSTAMP:20240403T224236Z
UID:70rjap1gXXXXX6oo68db56o@google.com
CREATED:20240402T105500Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240402T105500Z
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:12 hours 
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT

[sdetweil]

@shall_ ok. weird. anyhow

we dont process anything other than vevents. so the garbage at the top which has the x-wr timezone, we dont see.

so the calendar will be processed in the current system timezone.

if you want to see the debug of processing, add the ,“DEBUG” to the end of the logLevel property in config.js

and then start mm like this

npm start >somefile.txt 2>&1

wait til the cal is up, then ctrl-q quit mm and examine the somefile.txt

[sdetweil]

@shall_ because there is no timezone specified on the entry, it will be processed in the current system timezone

[shall_]

@sdetweil

I will have to pick this up again tomorrow. i will run the debug when i get home from work.
is there anything I am looking for in particular?

[sdetweil]

@shall_ because there is a rrule
the string
dates: …
documents the dates returned from the rrule.between function… yesterday plus 1 year
is the window we create to get recurring events

[MMRIZE]

@shall_
CX3 doesn’t parse ics file directly, so probably the default calendar app (or any event provider) must have responsibility.

But for an instant solution, you can use preProcessor or event payload to make a hotfix by force.

BEFORE

/* in your CX3 module config */
preProcessor: (event) => {
	if (["SomeCalendarName", "AnotherCalendarName"].includes(event.calendarName)) {
		event.startDate = Number(event.startDate) - 1000 * 60 * 60
		event.endDate = Number(event.endDate) - 1000 * 60 * 60
	}
	return event
}

AFTER

If all your calendar has that issue, you can omit if statement.

preProcessor: (event) => {
	event.startDate = Number(event.startDate) - 1000 * 60 * 60
	event.endDate = Number(event.endDate) - 1000 * 60 * 60
	return event
}

[shall_]

@MMRIZE Thanks for your reply.
The timed calendar events with a start/finish time show the correct time with no issue.

The issue solely lies with all-day and multi-day events.
All of these events during DST showed correctly, as soon as the timezone changed to BST. They now all rollover into the following day, so my 5 day events are now 6 days, 2 days are now 3, single days 2.

[MMRIZE]

@shall_
Can you send me the ics file? (eouia0819@gmail.com)

[shall_]

@MMRIZE i have emailed it over

[alaric10000]

Is MagicMirror installed directly to your Pi, or are you running it inside a Docker or other container? I originally had a similar problem with my MM configs all set properly, and my system time set properly, but for some reason I needed to also force the Docker container to the correct timezone with environment variables in the docker-compose file:

environment:
- TZ=America/Los Angeles
- SET_CONTAINER_TIMEZONE=true
- CONTAINER_TIMEZONE=America/Los_Angeles

Obviously you’d want a different timezone, and you’re probably running MM on your Pi without using Docker, but maybe it’ll help.

[MMRIZE]

@shall_ @alaric10000
It happens when the event is regarded as FulldayEvent but not to start at 0 O’clock. I updated the module to fix it.
https://github.com/MMRIZE/MMM-CalendarExt3/pull/141
Update the module and check it.

[MMRIZE]

Finally I found what was wrong.

The issue lies in the wrong parsing logic from the default calendar module about repeated full-day events with TimeZone by RRULE.

If you have installed CX3 v1.8.2, Reinstall again or back to 1.8.1 (I rolled back again to 1.8.1)

Then see this;
https://github.com/MMRIZE/MMM-CalendarExt3/wiki/To-fix-wrong-repeated-fullday-event-displaying-(MM-2.27)

[sdetweil]

@MMRIZE but… for full day, you ignore the time… or reset it to 00:00:00

[MMRIZE]

@sdetweil
Of course I can. I have already provided that manual method to my CX3 users. (https://github.com/MMRIZE/MMM-CalendarExt3/wiki/To-fix-wrong-repeated-fullday-event-displaying-(MM-2.27))

However, the value of notification should be trustable or consistent. All other kinds of events, like In-A-Day single events, Multiday-but-not-fullday-event, and even Repeated-Not-Fullday-event, could deliver the proper time, but only Repeated-Fullday events delivered the wrong value. That is out of common sense.

At least, it should have been guided as an intentional design. (I wasted several hours trying to guess what happened. Who could imagine the notification value was wrong?)

PS. Ah, I forgot there was another case; imperial units on broadcasted weather information. :)

[sdetweil]

@MMRIZE yes, we have had other users making updates.

[shall_]

@MMRIZE Apologies for the delayed reply, i have been busy and then couldn’t log in to the forum.

I have tried updating, installing, and reinstalling. then adding the code into my config file but i still can’t get it to correct. I think i put the code in correctly but i have attached that so you can check. my config file isn’t throwing up any errors?

how do i check what version of CX3 i am running? i did delete the whole folder and redo the git pull/install so i should have whatever is on github?

{
			module: "MMM-CalendarExt3",
			position: "bottom_bar",
			title: "",
			config: {
			mode: "week", //week or month view
			weeksInView: 5,
			weekIndex: 0, //-1 start last week, 0 this week, 1 next week.
			instanceId: "basicCalendar",
			locale: 'en-GB',
			maxEventLines: 4,
			firstDayOfWeek: 1,
			useWeather: true,
			weatherLocationName: 'xxxx',
			

			eventPayload: (payload) => {
				for (let ev of payload) {
				  if (ev.fullDayEvent) {
					let gap = +ev.endDate - +ev.startDate
					if (gap % (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24) === 0) {
					  ev.startDate = new Date(+ev.startDate).setHours(0, 0, 0, 0)
					  ev.endDate = new Date(+ev.startDate + gap).setMilliseconds(-1)
					}
				  }
				}
				return payload
			  },

			eventTransformer: (e) => {
  e.startDate = new Date(e.start?.date || e.start?.dateTime).valueOf()
  e.endDate = new Date(e.end?.date || e.end?.dateTime).valueOf()
  e.title = e.summary
  e.fullDayEvent = (e.start?.date) ? true : false
  //return e

	if (e.title.search('Lates') > -1) e.color = 'mediumvioletred'
	if (e.title.search('Earlies') > -1) e.color = 'yellow'
	if (e.title.search('12 hours') > -1) e.color = 'blue'
	if (e.title.search('12 Hours') > -1) e.color = 'blue'
	if (e.title.search('12 hrs') > -1) e.color = 'blue'
	if (e.title.search('Vacation') > -1) e.color = 'blue'
	if (e.title.search('vacation') > -1) e.color = 'blue'
	if (e.title.search('Shutdown') > -1) e.color = 'goldenrod'
	if (e.title.search('My weekend') > -1) e.color = 'deepskyblue'

	
	
  return e
	 


}

}
		},

[MMRIZE]

@shall_
Are you using MMM-GoogleCalendar?

[shall_]

@MMRIZE i am using the MMM-GoogleCalendar module

[shall_]

I have managed to fix my issue, it seems the event transformer I was using (to colour mt events) may have been contradicting the fix.

I removed the following from my event transformer which fixed the issue!

  e.startDate = new Date(e.start?.date || e.start?.dateTime).valueOf()
  e.endDate = new Date(e.end?.date || e.end?.dateTime).valueOf()