Google Calendar out of phase

[Meadbh]

I had a frustrating experience this week and almost lost a friendship due to Google Calendar. We had agreed to meet at Time A. I sent a calendar appointment for a Time A. On friend's computer it showed up as Time A + 7 hours. Each of us turned up at the coffee shop at our assigned times and wondered why we had been stood up. I "took the blame" and apologized, wondering whether I was suffering from early onset dementia. We talked on the phone and agreed to try again at a Time B. I sent another appointment. It showed up on friend's calendar at Time B +7 hours. That was when the penny dropped that this was a Google glitch. Checked device settings, all normal. Searched Google forums, and what do you know: there are discussions about this dating back several years, describing a lack if response from Google.

I will not be sending any further appointments using Google calendar as I would like to keep my friends!

 

[donheff]

That is interesting. I use Google Calendar all the time but never send invites. Don't you communicate first by email or phone? Seems kinda hard to be 7 hours off from what you agreed on without raising questions. "Lets do lunch next week," and then an invite shows up for 7 PM dinner? Oh, wait. We are getting to be a certain age. Maybe not so odd.

 

[Senator]

Make sure your time zone is set properly. That is the ticket. Google has no idea where you are accessing the calendar from.

They are giving you Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), rather than your actual timezone.

 

[MichaelB]

I will not be sending any further appointments using Google calendar as I would like to keep my friends!

I share your pain, and [-]had[/-] have the same problem with Apple calendar. While in Florida I scheduled a series of appointments in Chicago. Months later, in Chicago, I discovered (after showing up at the wrong time for the first one) the Apple Calendar app had changed all the times because I had changed time zone.

I think automatically changing the time is a flaw, any change should always be user confirmed. Apple doesn't agree, and now I see Google shares the Apple view. Now when I schedule an event I write the time as part of the description.

 

[braumeister]

I had some serious problems a few years ago, when people sent me invitations from Google Calendar and I opened them in Apple Calendar. The modifications were anything but understandable, and always led to confusion. I finally quit relying on them, like MichaelB, and now I too always put calendar entries in as "Meeting at 2 pm" or something like that.

 

[target2019]

In addition to sender and receiver time zone settings, it is also possible to change the locale and time for a given appointment. Or that setting default might be wrong.

 

[ERD50]

...

I think automatically changing the time is a flaw, any change should always be user confirmed. ...

Yes. In addition, I wish we could all get over this archaic 'I eat lunch at noon, and am in bed by midnight' thought process, and just go to GMT (or UTC or whatever they call it now), and drop this silly, artificial DST. Then you just say 'meeting at 6 AM', period. No confusion, everyone is on the same page.

I think people around the world would get used to eating lunch at whatever time it is in England pretty quickly (meet me for lunch at 3AM, or whatever). The whole time-zone thing was an adaptation of new technology - before the railroads and their schedules each town went by their own local sun time. But then railroads moved fast enough to make that obsolete. Well now, instant communication world-wide has made time-zones obsolete. One time for all. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

-ERD50

 

[yakers]

Yes. In addition, I wish we could all get over this archaic 'I eat lunch at noon, and am in bed by midnight' thought process, and just go to GMT (or UTC or whatever they call it now), and drop this silly, artificial DST. Then you just say 'meeting at 6 AM', period. No confusion, everyone is on the same page.

I think people around the world would get used to eating lunch at whatever time it is in England pretty quickly (meet me for lunch at 3AM, or whatever). The whole time-zone thing was an adaptation of new technology - before the railroads and their schedules each town went by their own local sun time. But then railroads moved fast enough to make that obsolete. Well now, instant communication world-wide has made time-zones obsolete. One time for all. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

-ERD50

And especially get rid of Daylight Saving Time, nothing wrong with starting work/school at a different time at different parts of the year, don't change the whole clock system.

 

[Meadbh]

China is all on one time zone. Canada, on the other hand, is a mess, with Saskatchewan not doing DST, a little corner of BC being on Mountain Time, and Newfoundland & Labrador being half an hour ahead of everybody else!

 

[braumeister]

Yes, it's a purely political decision.
Venezuela under Chavez put the clock back half an hour permanently, making it out of sync with all its neighbors. Pakistan is likewise half an hour behind India. The states of Western Australia and South Australia are 90 minutes different, despite sharing a common border.

I thought the 30 minute difference might be a bit confusing this summer on my first visit to Newfoundland, but it was completely unnoticeable so I got over it in a hurry.