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Topic: Mobility

Cellular phones botch DST

Summary: It's Sunday morning, March 11, 2007, on the first morning of the new DST (Daylight Saving Time), and I just noticed the time on my cell phone is ahead one hour.  No I don't mean it's ahead one hour from yesterday's time--it's ahead one hour by today's official time.

George Ou

By George Ou for Real World IT |

It's Sunday morning, March 11, 2007, on the first morning of the new DST (Daylight Saving Time), and I just noticed the time on my cell phone is ahead one hour.  No I don't mean it's ahead one hour from yesterday's time--it's ahead one hour by today's official time.  So instead of saying 7:45 AM, it says it's 8:45 AM.  On my wife's cell phone, the time didn't adjust at all, and it still says it's 6:45 AM.  Both cell phones are on Sprint.

[Update 8:40 AM - I found an update for Palm for my Treo 650.  I had to e-mail my cell phone this link, which points directly to the patch, and download it from the phone. Then, I had to go to applications and run the DSTPatch.  Then, I had to reboot the phone and reconnect to the cell network to get the right time. I haven't a clue what I'm supposed to do for my wife's Samsung A900 phone yet, and I'm still searching on the Web for answers. This is something that will probably affect every American's life, since we're not just talking about computers, and here's who they can thank. Y2K wasn't even this bad, and you didn't have to adjust your cell phones because of it.]

[Update 5:30 PM - The Samsung A900 cell phone now appears to have autoupdated.]

Ironically, we've been focusing on Microsoft's DST issues, but I haven't seen any yet.  My Vista machine made the transition properly, as did my company laptop.  Outlook is working correctly and none of my calendar items is messed up, which means the company Exchange server made the transition correctly. So far, all my computers are working fine, but if any of you are having DST issues, let me know in the talkback.

Topic: Mobility

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Talkback

45 comments
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  • Palm Treo DST issue; Not Sprint cellular

    And they had a patch out for the treo for some time.
    jfranche@...
    Reply Vote

    • How about the Samsung phone?

      It's not just Palm.
      georgeou
      Reply Vote

      • Turn off....turn on

        The cell phone time comes from the tower/switch - not the device. All you should have to do is turn off the phone and turn it back on. When the phone reaquires the network, the time should update. Most phones will do it automatically - mine did. But my wife had to turn hers on/off and it was changed. Same thing happens when you change timezones.
        jshaw4343
        Reply Vote

  • George, you're late

    I received an email alert from Palm regarding the DST update for the Palm Treo 650 a few days ago. The instructions looked pretty simple to me. I was able to download the .prc file over the air in a less than two minutes and install the file. Hmm, a tech writer having problems understanding simple tech instructions, what a headline. Email me and I will gladly walk you through the setup, seriously. Good Luck!!
    ngoron@...
    Reply Vote

    • I just patched it, but Samsung phone is a problem.

      1. I downloaded the patch to my 650 and ran it from Applications and told it to install the patch. I've rebooted the phone and reconnected to the network and it's working now.

      2. My wife's Samsung cell phone is still on yesterday's time.
      georgeou
      Reply Vote

  • Problem!

    My Linux on [url=http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040405/badger.shtml]Dead Badger's clock is now DST! It's just tool frickin' cool for words.

    Dead Badger is a 'distro' not the kernel! I cannot emphasize that enough.

    Anyhow, I never have any problems of any kind with Linux.

    Ok, now that you curiosity is peaked with Dead Badger, you can read more about Linux in general [url=http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Linux]here.[/url]

    Oh just one other thing, my microwave, oven clock, land-line cordless base/handset, timex watch (takes a lickin' keeps on a tickin'), netgear dual dect cordless skype phone, two pagers, two bedroom clocks, and one travel clock all were showing the wrong time!

    I had to set those manually. ;)
    Thank youz
    D T Schmitz
    Reply Vote

    • Hate it when that happens--missing tag

      My [url=http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040405/badger.shtml]Linux on Dead Badger[/url] clock is now DST! It's just tool frickin' cool for words.

      Dead Badger is a 'distro' not the kernel! I cannot emphasize that enough.

      Anyhow, I never have any problems of any kind with Linux.

      Ok, now that you curiosity is peaked with Dead Badger, you can read more about Linux in general [url=http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Linux]here.[/ur]

      Oh just one other thing, my microwave, oven clock, land-line cordless base/handset, timex watch (takes a lickin' keeps on a tickin'), netgear dual dect cordless skype phone, two pagers, two bedroom clocks, and one travel clock all were showing the wrong time!

      I had to set those manually. ;)
      Thank youz
      D T Schmitz
      Reply Vote

  • i have 2 samsung phones

    and both are working fine (i don't know the model number of the cingular phone while the other is the A900 on sprint).both changed time fine. my bigger issue is that my belkin router's time servers seem to be unpatched and not updating the timme.
    reverseswing
    Reply Vote

  • XP DST problems

    I have a Windows XP laptop with automatic updates and the DST problem wasn't fixed. I changed the time a few minutes ago and if I let it update with the server it switches my time back an hour. The only way I knew this was messed up is because my Cingular Razr actually switched correctly.
    chrisdc5@...
    Reply Vote

    • you can try this....

      I had a couple of customer laptops with the DST that didn't make the change. I managed to get the new DST to kick in by opening the "date and Time" properties, clicking on the "Time Zone" button and unchecking the "automatically adjust clock for Dalight Saving changes". I then stopped and restarted the Windows Time service, reapplied the check to "automatically adjust clock for Daylight Saving changes". Once more stop and restart of the Windows Time service and the clock corrected itself.

      I don't know why this worked, because I don't know why the DSY patch from MS failed. There may be a faster way to get this to work, but I was rushed and stopped researching other ways once I found that this method worked for me.
      ShoreLeave
      Reply Vote

    • A simple fix.

      Follow this link and Microsoft will walk you through the patch process to fix this.

      http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst
      ShadeTree
      Reply Vote

  • Verizon WM2003 i730 three hours behind

    My WM2003 i730 actually ended up being set backward about 2.75 hours. Makes no sense at all -- I applied the WM2003 patch.
    tshinder@...
    Reply Vote

    • YIKES

      I thought I had it bad. My Wife's A900 simply didn't change time at all. One commenter said his cell phone is fine.
      georgeou
      Reply Vote

      • There's a reason mine's is okay

        It's a simple stand-alone phone. There's no massive amount of functionality that would require having to download and apply patches. It just time-synced with my provider. I could have gone with a more feature-rich phone, but at a sale price of $15 where I work, it was a steal. Sometimes simpler is better.
        Tony Agudo
        Reply Vote

  • My Motorola GSM C139 is working just fine

    I just turned it on after reading this blog post(I was charging it), and before it connected to my provider(TracFone) the time was one hour behind. But the second it connected, it corrected itself with no "patches" required. That's how it should be, at least in my opinion. Is there any technical reason why the Treo couldn't just update in the same way?
    Tony Agudo
    Reply Vote

    • Just a stand-alone phone

      Yours is just a stand-alone phone. Gets all its dates and times directly from the provider.

      Treos and other devices have more functionality, and thus need updates to more than just time-syncing as your phone did.

      For my Blackberry 8703e, I pointed to blackberry's server and downloaded the patch the other day. Woke up this morning and time was changed.

      For my T-Mobile Sidekick, Danger pushed out patches to all their devices about a month ago. It too was fine this morning when I checked.

      As for George, it looks like he didn't go out and get the patches before today. Palm definitely had a patch out for at least two weeks. Samsung, I'm not sure what that device is, but I think Samsung runs on Windows Mobile, for which Microsoft also has patches for.

      All my servers, all my customers' servers and all my updatable-devices at home reporting good results this morning. The only thing I had to change was a stand-alone atomic digital radio clock. Which I'm glad, because at least I could look at that and be sure that all other devices were an hour ahead and properly updated.

      Now, I wonderif in April, my atomic clock is going to jump ahead an hour? I guess we'll have a very minor DST phase 2 in April, just to make sure things didn't jump ahead even when they're patched correctly.
      yyuko@...
      Reply Vote

      • Hmm, I never thought about that...

        [i]Now, I wonder if in April, my atomic clock is going to jump ahead an hour? I guess we'll have a very minor DST phase 2 in April, just to make sure things didn't jump ahead even when they're patched correctly.[/i]

        But I think that scenario had been put into account when pushing out the patches. It's just an adjustment of which days to automatically fall back or spring ahead one hour. On my computer, the days for DST changes are now March 11 and November 4. It should be the same for cell phones too, but you should check with the provider for instructions on how to verify the dates.

        Your atomic clock should automatically update, I think. If not just adjust it manually, it's not a big deal at all.
        Tony Agudo
        Reply Vote

  • Well all of my computers/phones/pda

    updated the time without a hitch.

    PowerBook and PowerMac / Tmobile RAZR V3's and a palm life drive
    mrlinux
    Reply Vote

  • Nokia phones don't.

    I have a fairly old model Nokia and it updated just fine.
    dave.leigh@...
    Reply Vote

  • Nokia phones don't.

    I have a fairly old model Nokia and it updated just fine.
    dave.leigh@...
    Reply Vote
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