Entourage broken time zone support with Sync Services

Here is the basic setup using Mac OS X 10.4.10 and Entourage 2004
11.3.6:
Completely clean Calendar [On My Computer]
Sync Services turned on for above calendar.
Computer is set to America/Denver. iCal is set to the same
Entourage is set to Mountain Time (US & Canada)

Steps to produce bug:
1) Create a new event in Entourage for 9AM Mountain Time (US & Canada)
for 1 hour
2) Event shows up in iCal as 3PM US/Mountain!

Currently, because of DST, 9AM Mountain is 3PM UTC. Coincident?
Unlikely.

Now consider these steps:
1) Create a new event for say 4PM America/Denver in iCal.
2) Event shows up in Entourage as 10PM Mountain Time (US & Canda)

Clearly this is a two way issue with Entourage and it appears that the
one side or the other is assuming UTC instead of using the correct
timezone as specified.

I know this has worked before, but for the life of me I can't figure
out what I'm doing wrong. The reason I got here is that I was
resyncing all of my Exchange data to iCal (new iPhone) and somewhere,
the time zone calculations got munged.

Any one have any suggestions?
Thanks,
Tarun

tarunr
Tue Sep 11 17:31:10 PDT 2007

On Sep 11, 4:57 pm, tar...@gmail.com wrote:
> Here is the basic setup using Mac OS X 10.4.10 and Entourage 2004
> 11.3.6:
> Completely clean Calendar [On My Computer]
> Sync Services turned on for above calendar.
> Computer is set to America/Denver. iCal is set to the same
> Entourage is set to Mountain Time (US & Canada)
>
> Steps to produce bug:
> 1) Create a new event in Entourage for 9AM Mountain Time (US & Canada)
> for 1 hour
> 2) Event shows up in iCal as 3PM US/Mountain!
>
> Currently, because of DST, 9AM Mountain is 3PM UTC. Coincident?
> Unlikely.
>
> Now consider these steps:
> 1) Create a new event for say 4PM America/Denver in iCal.
> 2) Event shows up in Entourage as 10PM Mountain Time (US & Canda)
>
> Clearly this is a two way issue with Entourage and it appears that the
> one side or the other is assuming UTC instead of using the correct
> timezone as specified.
>
> I know this has worked before, but for the life of me I can't figure
> out what I'm doing wrong. The reason I got here is that I was
> resyncing all of my Exchange data to iCal (new iPhone) and somewhere,
> the time zone calculations got munged.
>
> Any one have any suggestions?
> Thanks,
> Tarun

So as an additional bit of info... I go home to my MacBook Pro, and it
works there. And what I mean is that with the exact time zone settings
as my work machine for the OS, iCal and Entourage, creating a new
event in one calendar correctly creates it in the other calendar with
the correct time and time zone.

Sigh.

Tarun

Diane
Tue Sep 11 17:36:34 PDT 2007

On 9/11/07 5:31 PM, in article
1189557070.025257.306230@b32g2000prf.googlegroups.com, "tarunr@gmail.com"
<tarunr@gmail.com> wrote:

> So as an additional bit of info... I go home to my MacBook Pro, and it
> works there. And what I mean is that with the exact time zone settings
> as my work machine for the OS, iCal and Entourage, creating a new
> event in one calendar correctly creates it in the other calendar with
> the correct time and time zone.

Sounds like a setting on your work server.

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

tarunr
Tue Sep 11 18:18:44 PDT 2007

On Sep 11, 6:36 pm, Diane <di...@invalid.entourage.mvps.org> wrote:
> On 9/11/07 5:31 PM, in article
> 1189557070.025257.306...@b32g2000prf.googlegroups.com, "tar...@gmail.com"
>
> <tar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > So as an additional bit of info... I go home to my MacBook Pro, and it
> > works there. And what I mean is that with the exact time zone settings
> > as my work machine for the OS, iCal and Entourage, creating a new
> > event in one calendar correctly creates it in the other calendar with
> > the correct time and time zone.
>
> Sounds like a setting on your work server.
>

Only wish it were. On both machines I was trying it standalone (with
my local calendar). One works and the other doesn't with what appears
to be the exact same settings.

The one thing I noticed different is that Entourage on my broken
computer always has at the top of the calendar event "Event is in US
Mountain time, you computer is set to American/Denver". My correctly
working computer does not show that message.

It appears that one computer knows that that is the same, while the
other thinks it is two different time zones.

Diane
Tue Sep 11 19:02:38 PDT 2007

On 9/11/07 6:18 PM, in article
1189559924.376131.301130@v23g2000prn.googlegroups.com, "tarunr@gmail.com"
<tarunr@gmail.com> wrote:

> The one thing I noticed different is that Entourage on my broken
> computer always has at the top of the calendar event "Event is in US
> Mountain time, you computer is set to American/Denver". My correctly
> working computer does not show that message.
>
> It appears that one computer knows that that is the same, while the
> other thinks it is two different time zones.

Sounds like a corrupt preference. I would try changing it first to see if
you can get the correct time to stick.

I'm not sure which pref file holds that info. You could create a new User in
System Preferences. Open Entourage and set the time zone. Now try sorting
your preferences by date and see if you can find it. You'll have to sort the
Microsoft folder in preferences as well as the entire preference folder.

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

tarunr
Wed Sep 12 09:47:18 PDT 2007

On Sep 11, 8:02 pm, Diane <di...@invalid.entourage.mvps.org> wrote:
> Sounds like a corrupt preference. I would try changing it first to see if
> you can get the correct time to stick.
>
> I'm not sure which pref file holds that info. You could create a new User in
> System Preferences. Open Entourage and set the time zone. Now try sorting
> your preferences by date and see if you can find it. You'll have to sort the
> Microsoft folder in preferences as well as the entire preference folder.
>

Well I appreciate your help, but I've officially given up. I created a
new user on my existing Mac OS X volume and opened up Entourage and it
gave me the same broken behavior. I switched to a new install of Mac
OS X on a new partition, copied over my existing Microsoft Office
install and it gave me the same behavior there!!!

My only thought is that all of this happened when I first blew away
all of my MS Office prefs and that the latest builds of Entourage are
incorrectly doing TZ calcs. Maybe on my home machine (which has
preferences from Office 2004 when it first came out) has some remnant
setting that correctly makes it work. Better not delete those!

Tarun

tarunr
Wed Sep 12 11:13:48 PDT 2007

On Sep 12, 10:47 am, tar...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Sep 11, 8:02 pm, Diane <di...@invalid.entourage.mvps.org> wrote:
>
> > Sounds like a corrupt preference. I would try changing it first to see if
> > you can get the correct time to stick.
>
> > I'm not sure which pref file holds that info. You could create a new User in
> > System Preferences. Open Entourage and set the time zone. Now try sorting
> > your preferences by date and see if you can find it. You'll have to sort the
> > Microsoft folder in preferences as well as the entire preference folder.
>
> Well I appreciate your help, but I've officially given up. I created a
> new user on my existing Mac OS X volume and opened up Entourage and it
> gave me the same broken behavior. I switched to a new install of Mac
> OS X on a new partition, copied over my existing Microsoft Office
> install and it gave me the same behavior there!!!
>
> My only thought is that all of this happened when I first blew away
> all of my MS Office prefs and that the latest builds of Entourage are
> incorrectly doing TZ calcs. Maybe on my home machine (which has
> preferences from Office 2004 when it first came out) has some remnant
> setting that correctly makes it work. Better not delete those!
>
> Tarun

I lied when I said I would give up. It still bugs me!

So I reinstalled from 11.0.0 of Office 2004. Both that version and
11.1.0 don't show a time zone discrepancy. After updating to 11.2.0, I
get Event has different time zone than computer. Calendar will reflect
that (or some such). 11.3.0 and higher give me the two different time
zones message (when in fact both time zones are the same!)

Ugh.
Tarun

Diane
Wed Sep 12 16:09:01 PDT 2007

On 9/12/07 11:13 AM, in article
1189620828.265341.110140@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com, "tarunr@gmail.com"
<tarunr@gmail.com> wrote:

> So I reinstalled from 11.0.0 of Office 2004. Both that version and
> 11.1.0 don't show a time zone discrepancy. After updating to 11.2.0, I
> get Event has different time zone than computer. Calendar will reflect
> that (or some such). 11.3.0 and higher give me the two different time
> zones message (when in fact both time zones are the same!)

What installers are you using?

There is an 11.3.5 combo that takes the CD version up to 11.3.5. Then there
are two incremental updaters.

11.3.5 combo
11.3.6 requires 11.3.5 to be installed
11.3.7 requires 11.3.6 to be installed

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

tarunr
Thu Sep 13 12:35:47 PDT 2007

On Sep 12, 5:09 pm, Diane <di...@invalid.entourage.mvps.org> wrote:
> On 9/12/07 11:13 AM, in article
> 1189620828.265341.110...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com, "tar...@gmail.com"
>
> <tar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > So I reinstalled from 11.0.0 of Office 2004. Both that version and
> > 11.1.0 don't show a time zone discrepancy. After updating to 11.2.0, I
> > get Event has different time zone than computer. Calendar will reflect
> > that (or some such). 11.3.0 and higher give me the two different time
> > zones message (when in fact both time zones are the same!)
>
> What installers are you using?
>
> There is an 11.3.5 combo that takes the CD version up to 11.3.5. Then there
> are two incremental updaters.
>
> 11.3.5 combo
> 11.3.6 requires 11.3.5 to be installed
> 11.3.7 requires 11.3.6 to be installed
>

Oh yeah, that would have been the easy way :-). But I actually wanted
to see at what point my computer started to report that the event time
zone was different than the computer time zone. I used the 11.3.5
updater first and saw the problem immediately. I reinstalled a third
time and applied the service packs sequentially. That's when I saw
that 11.2.0 repeated my problem.

Tarun

tarunr
Tue Sep 18 13:02:36 PDT 2007

I figured it out!!!!!!!

Microsoft, please test on Case Sensitive File systems for Mac OS X!

Basically, some where in Entourage, timezones.xml is called as
Timezones.xml. There is no such file on a case-sensitive file system.
To fix this,

1) cd /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office (or the appropriately
situated place on your machine)
2) ln -s timezones.xml Timezones.xml

Everything is fixed!

Many thanks to Jay who message me privately about the existence of the
Timezones file, which I didn't know existed. I'll send him a message
separately to tell him the fix.

Tarun

Jolly
Tue Sep 18 13:18:35 PDT 2007

On 2007-09-18 15:02:36 -0500, tarunr@gmail.com said:

> Microsoft, please test on Case Sensitive File systems for Mac OS X!

I suspect you'll encounter problems with other parts of Mac OS X and
other thurd-party applications on a case-sensitive file system.

Just curious: Why did you format as case-seneitive to begin with?

--
Apply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it.

JR

tarunr
Tue Sep 18 14:12:16 PDT 2007

On Sep 18, 2:18 pm, Jolly Roger <wbyyleb...@cbobk.pbz> wrote:
> On 2007-09-18 15:02:36 -0500, tar...@gmail.com said:
>
> > Microsoft, please test on Case Sensitive File systems for Mac OS X!
>
> I suspect you'll encounter problems with other parts of Mac OS X and
> other thurd-party applications on a case-sensitive file system.
>
> Just curious: Why did you format as case-seneitive to begin with?
>
> --
> Apply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it.
>
> JR

There was an issue with Google Earth a while ago (quickly fixed) and I
guess CS3 doesn't install still with Case-Sensitive FS.

I use the filesystem because I reside mostly in the UNIX side of Mac
OS X and check out items from subversion from a linux box. That "may"
have case-sensitive files on there. More importantly however is that
we deploy to Linux which does have a case-sensitive file system. If we
use the insensitive file system, we may not find a bug until it is
deployed.

Sadly.. it appears I still have a one way sync issue with this. Items
created in iCal now show up in Entourage correctly. Entourage no
longer claims the event time zone and the computer time zone are
different; however, the syncing still doesn't work correctly. iCal
events get correctly pushed to Entourage, but they do not vice versa.
I may try and create a small non sensitive file system via a disk
image and try running Office from there.

austad
Wed Sep 19 14:35:46 PDT 2007

On Sep 18, 4:19 pm, Jolly Roger <wbyyleb...@cbobk.pbz> wrote:
> On 2007-09-18 16:12:16 -0500, tar...@gmail.com said:
>
>
>
> > On Sep 18, 2:18 pm, Jolly Roger <wbyyleb...@cbobk.pbz> wrote:
> >> On 2007-09-18 15:02:36 -0500, tar...@gmail.com said:
>
> >>> Microsoft, please test on Case Sensitive File systems for Mac OS X!
>
> >> I suspect you'll encounter problems with other parts of Mac OS X and
> >> other thurd-party applications on a case-sensitive file system.
>
> >> Just curious: Why did you format as case-seneitive to begin with?
>
> > There was an issue with Google Earth a while ago (quickly fixed) and I
> > guess CS3 doesn't install still with Case-Sensitive FS.
>
> > I use the filesystem because I reside mostly in the UNIX side of Mac
> > OS X and check out items from subversion from a linux box. That "may"
> > have case-sensitive files on there. More importantly however is that
> > we deploy to Linux which does have a case-sensitive file system. If we
> > use the insensitive file system, we may not find a bug until it is
> > deployed.
>
> Thanks for explaining. Seems like you definitely have a legitimate
> need to run case-sentivie.
>
> > Sadly.. it appears I still have a one way sync issue with this. Items
> > created in iCal now show up in Entourage correctly. Entourage no
> > longer claims the event time zone and the computer time zone are
> > different; however, the syncing still doesn't work correctly. iCal
> > events get correctly pushed to Entourage, but they do not vice versa.
>
> I wonder why...
>
> --
> Apply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it.
>
> JR

FIXED. Special thanks to Tarun Reddy for noticing that the problem
only appears when using a case-sensitive filesystem. I used fs_usage
to log all file accesses and wrote a bunch of scripts to get me a list
of possible files. I had a list of 536 candidate files after the
scripting and went through all of them by hand until I found it.

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /usr/share/zoneinfo/utc

tarunr
Thu Sep 20 10:18:04 PDT 2007

On Sep 19, 3:35 pm, aus...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Sep 18, 4:19 pm, Jolly Roger <wbyyleb...@cbobk.pbz> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 2007-09-18 16:12:16 -0500, tar...@gmail.com said:
>
> > > On Sep 18, 2:18 pm, Jolly Roger <wbyyleb...@cbobk.pbz> wrote:
> > >> On 2007-09-18 15:02:36 -0500, tar...@gmail.com said:
>
> > >>> Microsoft, please test on Case Sensitive File systems for Mac OS X!
>
> > >> I suspect you'll encounter problems with other parts of Mac OS X and
> > >> other thurd-party applications on a case-sensitive file system.
>
> > >> Just curious: Why did you format as case-seneitive to begin with?
>
> > > There was an issue with Google Earth a while ago (quickly fixed) and I
> > > guess CS3 doesn't install still with Case-Sensitive FS.
>
> > > I use the filesystem because I reside mostly in the UNIX side of Mac
> > > OS X and check out items from subversion from a linux box. That "may"
> > > have case-sensitive files on there. More importantly however is that
> > > we deploy to Linux which does have a case-sensitive file system. If we
> > > use the insensitive file system, we may not find a bug until it is
> > > deployed.
>
> > Thanks for explaining. Seems like you definitely have a legitimate
> > need to run case-sentivie.
>
> > > Sadly.. it appears I still have a one way sync issue with this. Items
> > > created in iCal now show up in Entourage correctly. Entourage no
> > > longer claims the event time zone and the computer time zone are
> > > different; however, the syncing still doesn't work correctly. iCal
> > > events get correctly pushed to Entourage, but they do not vice versa.
>
> > I wonder why...
>
> > --
> > Apply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it.
>
> > JR
>
> FIXED. Special thanks to Tarun Reddy for noticing that the problem
> only appears when using a case-sensitive filesystem. I used fs_usage
> to log all file accesses and wrote a bunch of scripts to get me a list
> of possible files. I had a list of 536 candidate files after the
> scripting and went through all of them by hand until I found it.
>
> ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /usr/share/zoneinfo/utc

I can verify that with this symlink and the one for timezone.xml,
everything Syncs correctly. Thank you!!

Tarun

Jolly
Thu Sep 20 11:35:54 PDT 2007

On 2007-09-20 12:18:04 -0500, tarunr@gmail.com said:

> On Sep 19, 3:35 pm, aus...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Sep 18, 4:19 pm, Jolly Roger <wbyyleb...@cbobk.pbz> wrote:
>>> On 2007-09-18 16:12:16 -0500, tar...@gmail.com said:
>>>> On Sep 18, 2:18 pm, Jolly Roger <wbyyleb...@cbobk.pbz> wrote:
>>>>> On 2007-09-18 15:02:36 -0500, tar...@gmail.com said:
>>
>>>>>> Microsoft, please test on Case Sensitive File systems for Mac OS X!
>>
>>>>> I suspect you'll encounter problems with other parts of Mac OS X and
>>>>> other thurd-party applications on a case-sensitive file system.
>>
>>>>> Just curious: Why did you format as case-seneitive to begin with?
>>
>>>> There was an issue with Google Earth a while ago (quickly fixed) and I
>>>> guess CS3 doesn't install still with Case-Sensitive FS.
>>
>>>> I use the filesystem because I reside mostly in the UNIX side of Mac
>>>> OS X and check out items from subversion from a linux box. That "may"
>>>> have case-sensitive files on there. More importantly however is that
>>>> we deploy to Linux which does have a case-sensitive file system. If we
>>>> use the insensitive file system, we may not find a bug until it is
>>>> deployed.
>>
>>> Thanks for explaining. Seems like you definitely have a legitimate
>>> need to run case-sentivie.
>>
>>>> Sadly.. it appears I still have a one way sync issue with this. Items
>>>> created in iCal now show up in Entourage correctly. Entourage no
>>>> longer claims the event time zone and the computer time zone are
>>>> different; however, the syncing still doesn't work correctly. iCal
>>>> events get correctly pushed to Entourage, but they do not vice versa.
>>
>>> I wonder why...
>>
>> FIXED. Special thanks to Tarun Reddy for noticing that the problem
>> only appears when using a case-sensitive filesystem. I used fs_usage
>> to log all file accesses and wrote a bunch of scripts to get me a list
>> of possible files. I had a list of 536 candidate files after the
>> scripting and went through all of them by hand until I found it.
>>
>> ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /usr/share/zoneinfo/utc
>
> I can verify that with this symlink and the one for timezone.xml,
> everything Syncs correctly. Thank you!!

This sounds like a great potential entry in the Entourage MVP FAQ page!
Diane, what do you think?

--
(Apply rot13 to this e-mail address before using it.)

JR

Diane
Thu Sep 20 20:02:43 PDT 2007

On 9/20/07 11:35 AM, in article 2007092013355450073-wbyylebtre@cbobkpbz,
"Jolly Roger" <wbyylebtre@cbobk.pbz> wrote:

> This sounds like a great potential entry in the Entourage MVP FAQ page!
> Diane, what do you think?

I'll get it posted soon on the "Find Solutions for Crashes, Conflicts and
General Problems"

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/crashes.html>

I'll also link to it from the Time page:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/time.html>

Getting it posted is half the battle. The other part is making is so users
can find the info.

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

William
Sat Sep 22 15:24:17 PDT 2007

austad@gmail.com wrote:

> FIXED. Special thanks to Tarun Reddy for noticing that the problem
> only appears when using a case-sensitive filesystem. I used fs_usage
> to log all file accesses and wrote a bunch of scripts to get me a list
> of possible files. I had a list of 536 candidate files after the
> scripting and went through all of them by hand until I found it.
>
> ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /usr/share/zoneinfo/utc

This is a really fascinating problem (and solution) considering that the
11.3.3 update should have changed Entourage's behavior to use the system
timezone information rather than using its own.

Diane has provided the original problem and solution to Microsoft and
I've asked for some clarification of when the different files are used
(Panther vs. Tiger, 11.3.2 vs. 11.3.3 and later, etc.). I think these
solutions may make good additions to The Entourage Help Page once we
understand how Entourage accesses time zone information.

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

tarunr
Mon Sep 24 09:25:18 PDT 2007

On Sep 20, 9:02 pm, Diane <di...@invalid.entourage.mvps.org> wrote:
> I'll get it posted soon on the "Find Solutions for Crashes, Conflicts and
> General Problems"
>
> <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/crashes.html>
>
> I'll also link to it from the Time page:
>
> <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/time.html>
>

Diane,

Can you please change the Title to the MVP FAQ entry?
"Entourage broken time zone support with Sync Services when using a
Unix server" isn't quite appropriate because it has nothing to do with
using a Unix server.

More appropriately, "Entourage broken time zone support with Sync
Services when installed on case-sensitive filesystem".

Thanks,
Tarun

Diane
Mon Sep 24 17:31:44 PDT 2007

On 9/24/07 9:25 AM, in article
1190651118.948047.86130@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com, "tarunr@gmail.com"
<tarunr@gmail.com> wrote:

> Can you please change the Title to the MVP FAQ entry?
> "Entourage broken time zone support with Sync Services when using a
> Unix server" isn't quite appropriate because it has nothing to do with
> using a Unix server.
>
> More appropriately, "Entourage broken time zone support with Sync
> Services when installed on case-sensitive filesystem".

Done. If you wouldn't mind, I would like to add Tarun as the contributor.

--
Diane, Microsoft Mac MVP (MVPs are not Microsoft Employees)
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>