iCal and Mobile Me are One Hour Off!

Thanks for your response, now just to make sure we're on the same page:

Which of these has the correct time, which incorrect:

iCal
MobileMe Web
iPhone

Let's step through this:

a. Your mac thinks it's in Eastern Time? Verify by opening System Preferences and ensuring this is your location in Time Zone.

b. You have TZ support ON in iCal and it shows US/Eastern at top right of the window?

c. When you check one of the events that you have imported that shows the wrong time it also shows "US/Eastern" - this literal string - as the time zone?

Finally, when you say that you export .csv to "Palm" can you tell me the precise name of the application and version number please?

OK. I think I have your culprit: Palm Desktop (assuming that's what you are using). I am 99% certain it's not a problem of iCal's making.

Palm Desktop has no concept of time zones, so it works with whatever is in the System Preferences time zone, to give a "helpful" conversion to your time zone when exporting to vCal. It does not, however, specify a time zone in the resulting file but rather does a conversion - so an event at 10:00am in New York will show as absolute "zulu" T150000Z - 3pm - in GMT.

When iCal imports this file, it uses the absolute GMT time. Whether time zone support is on or off, however, it will use the offset of 5 hours between local time _in the System Preference Date & Time pane_ and GMT to set the start time at your location, so once more it is shown as starting at 10:00am.

So what's the answer to your problem?

Turn off time zone support in all your calendar apps: iCal, MobileMe, iPhone.

Check your System Preference time zone is correct - and preferably set your date and time automatically for accuracy.

Export from Palm Desktop (I was working with v 4.2.1) in vCal format and import immediately to iCal without changing location or time zone settings.

NOTE: None of the events that you have currently imported will be fixed by this solution as it all happens at the time of export from Palm and import to iCal. You could delete the iCal data now and start over with the last spreadsheet you received to prove the solution.

You will also likely have all sorts of problems when Daylight Savings comes in - if t he season crosses that boundary (forgive my ignorance) as I don't think Palm understands that concept either.

Finally, may I ask what your reason is for maintaining the original data in a spreadsheet - or is it provided from elsewhere in that format?

I am having same issues. When I put a new event in my iPhone it shows up one hour behind in iCal and Mobile Me. I have read the helpful notes on this forum. I am EST. I checked to make sure
Mobile me set to EST
System Pref = EST
iCal = Time Zone Support Checked.

Most of my calendar events that were imported from Palm Desktop were "all day yearly events". But, this happens even when I put new events in using the iPhone.

On the Palm there was a way to have handheld overwrite desktop. Is there a way I have have iPhone overwrite mobile me to reset all the timed events and see if will stay?
Thanks,

On your iPhone check that you have Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>Calendars Time Zone Support> OFF.

It's not really the same issue as the one we've been discussing here... so if this doesn't work it might be worth posting a new question.

I've had the same issue. I create an event on iPhone - is shows up one hour earlier in iCal and also in my calendar via exchange. I create an event on iCal and on my exchange calendar and it shows up one hour later on my iPhone. I've been live chat with apple support, and tried everything with adjusting time zones.... all to no avail. I noticed when I upgraded to iPhone 2.2 firmware. Everything points to a problem in the iPhone (or at least the way in "syncs".) My last resort is a complete wipe and re-install (which I really don't want to do.)

That fixed it! Thanks Bernard. You da man 🙂 Unfortunately, it overwrote all the correct times on my iPhone with the wrong times from Mobile Me.. But, that is ok. At least things are synced up now.

Message was edited by: hotoru

I found this solution on another discussion ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8399991&#8399991) It worked for me!

On my iPhone I went to Settings, Mail/Contacts/Calendars, All the way at the bottom is a selection for Time Zone Support, it was still listed as GMT-4 which would be correct for DST. I turned Time Zone Support off and then back on again and it changed to Washington, DC (GMT-5). All of the items on my Calendar were then correct.

Jack

Did you read this?

Bernard

I had the same problem - two iphones syncing to Imac and Mobile Me and i couldnt work out why appointments on my wife's iphone were showing up as being one hour before mine......

Finally stumbled onto the time zone in settings on the iphone and fixed it up but it took me ages to find it.....

Apple should make this part of the set up on the iphone or even use GPS location to automatically set the location on the iphones.