ActiveSync produces incorrectly timed events due to winter/summer time setting

[ExTechOp]

REPRODUCIBILITY: ?
OS VERSION: 4.4.0.68 (Vanha Rauma)
HARDWARE: Sony Xperia 10III (XQ-BT52)
UI LANGUAGE: En
REGRESSION: ?!

DESCRIPTION:

Trying to use ActiveSync (“Microsoft Exchange”) mail accounts produces events on the phone with incorrect times IF the events were originally created on a different winter/summer time than what is currently in effect.

PRECONDITIONS:

You need an account on a mail server supporting the ActiveSync protocol (either an actual Microsoft Exchange server, and/or some kind of emulation of such as Zimbra), where you have older calendar events.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

1. Configure an ActiveSync account with calendar sync on your phone
2. Note that single-occurance events close to the current date have correct times
3. Extend sync time from default to eg. 6 months, or sync all events, so that you also get events from before the last winter/summer time change

EXPECTED RESULT:

Also events from differing winter/summer time setting get populated into the phone correctly.

ACTUAL RESULT:

Recurring or older events which were created in different winter/summer time setting end up populated on the phone with one hour error in time.

MODIFICATIONS:

Added F-Droid, Aurora, Chum, Storeman repositories and apps from these.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Creating separate IMAP/DAV accounts on the phone for the same email server account will populate also the older events with correct times. This might also have something to do with the poor standardization of time zone names used by mail servers.

Could be related to (or a subset of) this already once-fixed bug?

Calendar Entries - Scheduled Time One Hour Later Than Set

REPRODUCIBILITY (% or how often): 100% BUILD ID = OS VERSION (Settings > About product): 4.0.1.48 HARDWARE (XA2, Xperia 10…): XA2 UI LANGUAGE: English REGRESSION: (compared to previous public release: Yes, No, ?): Not Known DESCRIPTION: Whatever time you set when creating a new calendar entry then appears in the calendar one hour later. So, for example, if you create a new event for 18:00 to 19:00 it actually appears in the calendar as 19:00 to 20:00. This is not a display issue since if y…

[Steve_Everett]

Indeed, I reported that bug some time ago and I believe Jolla had said it had been fixed - in the first 4.4 release I thought. I no longer use Exchange accounts for various reasons (this one included) so have not tested it since the claimed fix.

[ExTechOp]

As I said in my report, I think my issue may be a subset of yours, as events in the current winter/summer time setting do get populated on the phone correctly, unlike in your case where all events ended up incorrect?

[Steve_Everett]

Well my problem appeared to be when the phone was set to a different timezone to the synchronising server - in my case UK time and UTC time, so it may well be the same sort of thing as the phone being set in a summer time (e.g. BST in the UK) with the server still operating in GMT?

[pasik]

I’ve seen this activesync winter/summertime bug earlier with JollaC aswell.

[simosagi]

Note that Microsoft has put in deprecation phase all the ‘Basic Authentication’ methods, which includes ActiveSync, and since October 1st, 2022 will disable all Basic Auth access on Exchange Online.

[flypig]

We did apply some fixes related to timezones that went in to 4.4.0, but unfortunately I was never able to reproduce the issue @Steve_Everett was hitting. That made it both difficult to diagnose, and also difficult to know whether the changes were going to fix it.

I’ve created an internal issue for this more specific bug. I’ll try to reproduce it but may need to come back for more info.