Wrong timestamp for SMS Messages

Hi,

Check the Mac's Time and Date settings in System Preferences > Date and Time including the Time Server and Location.

Check that any Daylight Saving time is applied if required.

On the iPhone in Settings > General > Date and Time do the same things (Or as close as the settings allow)

A specific 30 mins does sound like one of those places that is offset by 1/2 hour rather than a more common 1hour Time Zone difference.

Having said that, if is is just SMS that is out in this manner it is more likely to be the server end with your Carrier's service.

8:42 pm Thursday; August 9, 2018

I had the same problem as the OP (a problem on my laptop, not on my phone) and the problem surfaced recently, within the last couple of weeks I would say.

Humm,

So the iPhone receives them in a timely manner.

The passing to the Mac, which would appear to be on most of, if not all of the time, seems to be the issue.

The fact the Messages app shows them out of order but that they reset when the app is restarted suggests that the Mac as a whole would appear to have time keeping issues.

There could be reasons for this:-

1) in System Preferences > Date and Time the Automatic Time Server is not On

2) there are many apps open or possibly one or two that cause heavy processor use.

Symptoms might include seeing the Spinning Beach ball and having to wait for apps to do something.

Check with Activity Monitor (Applications/Utilities) to see if any internal Processes are also using high levels of CPU time.

Whilst unlikely, any time setting in the router might play a part.

Your routing device can normally be accessed in a Web Browser (with the User Name and Password)

Many have a similar time setting such as the one on the Mac about keeping the time as many data packets need time stamps.

7:35 pm Friday; August 24, 2018

Hi,

As the issue is not just the SMS items but all you incoming and presumably outgoing Messages I would do a PRAM reset.

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

Historically PRAM and now NVRAM have been responsible to hold certain settings over Start ups.

This like the Date and Time and the Volume settings, and other things that are in the System Preferences.

Whilst this is less critical in more recent OS versions it can still pay to do this as a sort of first step maintenance.

If this seems to fail then try a Safe Boot

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

Safe Boot clears out some caches that a normal Restart does not touch and also items that a PRAM reset does not touch either.

8:57 pm Monday; August 27, 2018

invisiblehand86 wrote:

How do I fix this?

Short answer: you can't.

Assuming your Mac's system clock is correct as Ralph Johns (UK) wrote, the SMS time stamp is a product of factors beyond your (or Apple's for that matter) ability to control. The sender's device and data carrier are among them. The result can be a visual mess since the Messages app will sort them according to the only times and dates it can possibly know.

Thanks for the updates. I was off balance. I didn't realize the time stamp error was Mac only. It sounds like the error is corrected when you Quit and re-open the Messages app. When you do that and the messages are re-shuffled into their correct order, are the time stamps hence corrected and match those on the iPhone? Re-check the time stamps. On the iPhone, in a conversation, touch anywhere and slide to the left to reveal the specific message time stamps to the right. On the Mac, hover the pointer/cursor over a message to pop forth the specific time stamp.

Hi,

The iPhone will receive the SMS via the carrier service.

It relies on the Server end and the iPhone's own time to give them the time stamps.

The iPhone will then pass the SMS onwards via your LAN via it's WiFi connection to the Mac or other devices you might be forwarding to.

The device between the Mac and the iPhone will be the router and if the Mac's time settings seem to be OK I would look at the setting on the router.

8:17 pm Monday; August 27, 2018

Those guys are right. That time stamp is slapped on there by the sender's carrier's SMSC. You're not the only one to report this lately and don't be surprised if that false latency increases over time. I'd be curious to know what country the other party is in and/or who their carrier is.

Thanks for the heads up. That's rich! Fascinating to realize that Newfoundland, Canada is one of the places that includes a half-hour in its offset. I also noticed Lord Howe Island, Australia only adds a half-hour for daylight savings time. Anyway, I absolutely agree with the possibility of this being the cause. You could have a system in an n+1/2 hours-offset time zone but the system time zone is set to n hours offset and then you adjust the console time by 30 minutes to match local time, then console time plus time zone offset is now off by 30 minutes and that's what will propagate to other systems. On the other hand, if the apparent differential tends to increase or decrease as time goes by, then it's probably an out-of-sync, drifting system clock.

Time Passages. There's something back here that you left behind. 30 minutes!

Thanks Ralph. But this is happening on different routers (at home and at work).

Here is a more detailed description of my problem:

I'm having the strangest problem and it started about 3 weeks ago. I text a lot from my MacBook Pro. In some text conversations, the time stamp on the Mac is different than the time stamp on my iPhone.

For example, I'm texting with someone from my Mac at 6 pm and the program shows the texts are at 2 pm. But the time is correct on my iPhone. This happens whether I text the person from my iPhone or text with them from my Mac. It's weird because the iPhone timestamps are always correct on all text conversations yet on my Mac, the timestamps on some text conversations are off by 4-5 hours.

This causes my texts to be out of order on my Mac. I often have to save (print to pdf) my text conversations for legal reasons and because of this error on the Mac, my saved text conversations are incorrectly time stamped.

All my date/time settings on the Mac are set to automatic, as are the settings on my iPhone.

This is also occurring on my iMac. So my iMac and MacBook Pro have incorrect (but different from each other) times.

This happens whether it's SMS or iMessages. It's not unique to either.

It also happens on different wifi routers (problem occurs at work and at home) so I don't believe it's the router.

Since the problem is isolated to my Mac, and started just recently, I'm thinking that's where the problem exists? Is it High Sierra bug? Ideas? Suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Hi,

I see.

Seems like it is something new and not where we were aiming our responses at.

So an SMS arrives on the iPhone and is timed (and dated) with the (correct) arrival time ?

This is passed straight to the Mac that is then showing a different time ?

This then causes the stacking and re-ordering seen on the Mac which means the latest response in a thread can be missed.

Are the items on the phone still in the right order and spaced out in normal conversation manner ?

I have an iPhone 6 that seems to have a dodgy battery. The Phone reports it at 100% charge for long periods and then "Dies" suddenly.

Yesterday it did this whilst I was at work.

I put the iPhone on Charge in the car for the 15minute journey home.

After a few minutes it chimed to say it had received an SMS.

Later at home I turned on my MacBook Pro and it reported the SMS was received at the time that the iPhone showed even though I had turned on the Mac about 3 hours later.

Anything like this that might effect the info on screen will help.

8:39 pm Thursday; August 23, 2018

Hi,

Some hints

https://www.timeanddate.com/time/time-zones-interesting.html

India

Parts of Australia

Countries north and east of India.

Venezuela

and other shown in the map.

8:55 pm Saturday; August 11, 2018

I have a similar issue with SMS/MMS messages on my Macs, though the offset in the conversation I’m currently having is -1 hour, 57 minutes. My date and time settings are proper on both the Mac and my iDevices.

What I find interesting about the explanation that’s been given (read: what makes it strain credulity for me) is that this discrepancy only exists on the Macs (10.13.6), not the iPhone (11.4.1) that forwarded the messages to the Macs. The timestamps are just fine on the phone.