Need help? Check out our Support site, then


WordPress.com Forums » Support

google calendar in WP blog--dates and times of events change--how to fix?

  1. alpinehouse
    Member

    I recently added a functioning Google calendar to my WP blog thanks to the tips from Sanjida's Netty Gretty blog. But I am running into a problem. When I add an event to the Google calendar (I add it just through my Google ID), the event shows at the date and time I specified. But then when I view the Google calendar through my blog, the date and time are different–one day later. I thought this might have something to do with my time zone settings in the calendar vs. the blog. I had been using the UTC offset in my blog settings, rather than the actual time zone. So I changed the blog's time zone setting to be the actual time zone. But the problem persists. Here is my blog’s name: alpinehouse.wordpress.com. (It is still in the development stage.) I'd appreciate any ideas!

    The blog I need help with is alpinehouse.wordpress.com.

  2. alpinehouse
    Member

    Perhaps related: I am getting a consistent error message on my dashboard that is in red italic type and says, "Service Error: There was a problem getting the configuration information."

  3. sanjidas
    Member

    I am getting a consistent error message on my dashboard
    Which dashboard? WordPress.com or Google Calendar or Tagul?

  4. alpinehouse
    Member

    The error message is on the WordPress dashboard. It appears at the top of the yellowish "Welcome to WordPress.com" box that appears when I go to the dashboard. Thanks for responding.

  5. sanjidas
    Member

    It seems that you have been able to add the Google Calendar in your sidebar. Are you still having this problem?

  6. timethief
    Member

    @alpinehouse
    If you move the widget with the Google Calender in it up into the "wide sidebar" I believe it will be more convenient for your visitors to use as the whole calender will be visible to them. The "wide sidebar" width is 300 pixels. The two smaller sidebars are only 140 pixels in width.

  7. alpinehouse
    Member

    Thanks sanjidas and timethief for your attention to my question. Regarding the small calendar in the sidebar: This small calendar was just experimental--in addition to the large calendar on the "calendar" tab, we were trying to have something small that would show on all pages of the blog. But the small calendar is so small that scheduled events don't show at all, so we are going to abandon it.

    The main calendar for the blog is on the tab/page labeled "calendar." This bigger calendar is large enough to show events and is connected to a contact form on the page.

    The problem with the day and time being changed still persists. The day and time show correctly in the Google calendar outside of WordPress, but when I view the calendar through WordPress, the dates and times are different.

    I am in the process of adding several bogus events to the calendar for testing purposes. I also have my colleague (who has management rights on the calendar) posting some bogus events as well. We hope to find patterns in the problem to diagnose it better.

    I still suspect the problem has something to do with the time zone settings between WordPress and Google Calendar. On the dashboard, I still show the message "Service Error: There was a problem getting the configuration information." I assume that settings like time zone might be "configuration information."

    Sanjida--have you seen anything like this problem as you have pulled in a Google calendar?

    I'll report later on any patterns I find from my bogus calendar posting!

    Thanks!

  8. alpinehouse
    Member

    Absolutely a pattern. All entries except one (see * below) come into the blog calendar exactly 6 hours later than they are posted in the Google source calendar.

    * exception is a bogus entry I created in November, for after daylight savings will be over. In this entry, the item comes into the blog 7 hours later than that in the source calendar.

    The offset from the UTC timezone to my current timezone (Denver) is 6 hours now, and 7 hours when daylight savings is not in effect.

    So it really must be something related to how the calendar and the blog handle time zone settings.

    Still appreciate any advice!

  9. thattj
    Member

    I'm having a similar issue. I have my Google calendar displaying in a widget in my sidebar. The entries look fine in Google Calendar when I'm logged in. However, when I'm not logged in to Google and I click on one of the events in the widget, the date/time display is 6 hours later.

    http://thattj.com

  10. alpinehouse
    Member

    Hi, thattj. I have been researching this problem more, and I have been trying all kinds of tests where I change the time zones, where I remove the calendar, etc.

    Last night, I discovered that the problem seems to be a widespread problem in the google calendar world--when a website embeds a google calendar, the calendar often reverts to Greenwich Mean Time. If you are in the Mountain Standard time zone, then that would be a 6 hour difference for you.

    There appear to be some ways to address the problem, not always easy. I am going to be working on this problem in my own blog today, and I will respond here again with anything else I find.

    I have been looking at these two forum discussions:

    http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/sites/thread?tid=4b81ada4d19dbe8b&hl=en

    http://www.google.ru/support/forum/p/sites/thread?tid=62ab56b85ccf536d&hl=en

    The second discussion thread includes comments from a Google employee, who says the problem is fixed. However, it seems that we still have to take care of setting all time zone codes correctly in all places.

  11. sanjidas
    Member

    @alpinehouse,
    [...] I will respond here again with anything else I find.

    Thanks for keeping us updated! :)

  12. alpinehouse
    Member

    For me, the issue seemed to be related to making sure that the time zone was set correctly TWO TIMES in the google calendar. There is a "general settings" tab that has a time zone setting. But there is also a calendar-specific time zone setting for each sub calendar. To check that it is set correctly,

    1. Look at your list of calendars and subcalendars.

    2. Right below that list, in very small type, are two words, "add" and "settings." Click on "settings."

    3. Choose the tab that says "calendars." This will give you a list of all your calendars.

    4. Click on the calendar you want to embed in your blog. This brings up a page where you establish the settings just for that one calendar. This is also the page where you can get the embed code that you will use to get the calendar through Tagul and into your blog.

    5. On this calendar-specific settings page, look for the "calendar time zone" spot. Choose the time zone you want to show on the calendar you embed in your blog.

    6. Double-check that it's set by looking down a couple of boxes for where it says "Embed this calendar." There, in a box, is the code that will determine how your calendar shows up in your blog. Look for a little code that says &ctz="timezone," where "timezone" is the timezone you want to show. For example, I'm in the mountain standard time zone, and in my embed code, it reads

    <iframe src="https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=t18666r7179krc4t3nfb9f29k4%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Denver" style="border: 0" width="800" height="600" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

    The ctz=America/Denver is what determines that when I broadcast this calendar, it shows the times in the mountain standard time zone.

  13. alpinehouse
    Member

    And Sanjida, I again want to say thanks to you for the overall solution using Tagul. It has worked really well for my project, and having a functioning google calendar was essential to our project. If you are interested, you can see how it's working on my "calendar" page on alpinehouse.wordpress.com--It's displayed in the full page style, so it's nice and big, and I'm really happy with the results overall.

    (Of course, now there seems to be another bug in the Google Calendar Tools, where it doesn't consistently display sub-calendars--I'm working on that now too! But that's a different problem!)

  14. sanjidas
    Member

    @alpinehouse,
    Thanks for trying out my workaround and you are always welcome! :D

    Currently it is the only way to embed iframe widgets in a wordpress.com blog and using it happily definitely makes all the work I had to go thru' in order to write the tutorial totally worth it!

    Unfortunately, I don't know yet how to deal with problems issuing in Google Calendar itself. I am counting on you to keep us updated!

    And my, your Google Calendar is looking very pretty, sitting right in your wordpress.com blog!

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.

About this Topic

Tags