* unable to enter FHUG site with message Your clock is behind etc

[jimlad68]

I am using a manually set time on my Windows laptop (due to MS international date/time confusions), which I have been doing for some time with date & Time settings "Set the time automatically" set to OFF and just this evening when opening the FHUG site got this message (similar on Edge, Firefox and Opera):

Your clock is behind
A private connection to www.fhug.org.uk can't be established because your computer's date and time (Wednesday, 19 April 2023 at 21:16:54) are incorrect.
NET::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID

In order to get to FHUG and post this I had to set "Set the time automatically" to ON.

Is there a change to the FHUG site or anyone know of a new Windows security feature?

[jelv]

Were you getting similar errors trying to access any other https://... sites? That error looks like it may the browsers checking the security and nothing specific to FHUG.

[NickWalker]

Can you explain this bit:

I am using a manually set time on my Windows laptop (due to MS international date/time confusions)

In the world of networking that I have been involved with for many years there can be all sorts of issues if the time isn't very accurate and if your computer isn't synchronising via a time server. In my experience computers may gain or lose several seconds over a relatively short period. As long as your PC is set to be in the correct time-zone, setting time to update automatically should work fine?

[jelv]

To add to Nick's answer: rather than turning off Set the time automatically, you may find turning off Adjust for daylight saving time automatically and picking an alternative time zone that gives the + or - offset from UTC you want a better way to go.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Is there a change to the FHUG site

No.

[Little.auk]

I think that your comment -

------- got this message (similar on Edge, Firefox and Opera):

- that this occurs on different browsers - pinpoints the cause of your problem - which is nothing to do with FHUG. Neither is it a "New" Windows security feature. (It is actually a network security feature of web browsers).

the website https://net-informations.com/q/mis/clock.html gives a good overview of this error message and how to fix it.

As others have posted, it is a message that your laptop clock is slow compared to UTC - this happens because setting your time to manual makes your laptop set, and maintain it's time based on it's own timing system. This will work for a while, but the frequency signal within the laptop used to do this is not totally accurate, so your laptop time will gradually drift away from "real" time, until it goes outside the allowed tolerance.

I don't understand why you should need to set the time to manual, but if that is what you want to do, then you will need to make regular manually adjustments to set the laptop back to UST.

[neil40]

I'm a bit mystified as to why it needs to be set manually.
I've never had issues with my PC or laptop keeping time correctly, and they always corrects the +1 or -1 hour on the correct day.
Windows should sync from time.windows.com. I can manually press that to check it's up to date if there's any doubt

[jbtapscott]

I'm a bit mystified as to why it needs to be set manually.

Largely depends on your lifestyle / travels, etc. I used to travel a lot on business and did not always want my laptop constantly resetting times, etc., so I had those sort of things turned off. I have also found issues with Ms Outlook (the desktop version rather than cloud), in that auto changing of time zones and / or clocks caused problems on certain calendar events - probably down to the way I did / did not apply time zones to events, but again, a reason I had for manually rather than auto adjusting clock / time zone.

[jimlad68]

Many thanks for all those observations. The most likely culprit is:

..... will gradually drift away from "real" time, until it goes outside the allowed tolerance.

In consequence in windows settings I set the time automatically ON and Synchronised my clock.
Then set the time automatically OFF and adjusted the time manually.
So far this seems to be working.

Why do I want to do this? Very similar to:

.... I have also found issues with Ms Outlook (the desktop version rather than cloud), in that auto changing of time zones and / or clocks caused problems on certain calendar events

I found that if I made entries in Outlook calendar in a different time zone say in the USA, when I got back to the UK, it showed as 5 hours out (understandably in an international business sense) and sometimes a different day! In consequence I no longer use the "time" in outlook and just prefix my "subject" with the time instead.
There might be a way to override this "feature", but I am happy with my simple fix for personal use.

[Jane]

I don't use Outlook, but in the Google Calendar you can set the Timezone for each event. I do this a lot when travelling, it is especially useful for Airline times. You can do the same in outlook - see
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/off ... d183429382

[jbtapscott]

For me it is more historic than current. As I split my time nowadays between Greece and the UK I do make more use of Time Zones now, but there was an issue in earlier versions of Outlook where the TZ, even when not explicitly set, did get saved with a calendar entry and it was this that was primarily causing me problems.

[Little.auk]

Brent, What version of Windows are you using? Windows 10 introduced the facility to set time zones automatically - see attached image. This is the recommended setting for laptops if they are going to be used in different time zones. It also has the facility to show additional time zones, so you can work in the USA and easily check the U.K. time.

I can't comment on Outlook Calendar as I stopped using Outlook more than 10 years ago, however, I would have thought that it would have the facility to set the time zone when creating an appointment - Google Calendar certainly has this facility.

Time Zones.jpg (124.49 KiB) Viewed 788 times

[jimlad68]

I don't use Outlook, but in the Google Calendar you can set the Timezone for each event. I do this a lot when travelling, it is especially useful for Airline times. You can do the same in outlook - see
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/off ... d183429382

I have looked into this in the past and your link gives a very good explanation why it is as it is, and understandably so for international and/or business and understandingly confusing. Although one can create an item with a different time zone, it does not seem possible to choose a field to table display or export it. Perhaps I have missed it.

For me I use Calendar like an old fashioned diary, to make reminders for the future and a permanent record of past events, so I want to know the "official" date/time where the event took place. Hence my simply putting the time at the beginning of the subject line and making all events all day, this also orders it chronologically.

Ideally we should all use GMT/UTC but that might not be practical, at least outlook and similar should display both UTC and Local time when recorded, that would satisfy international and/or business and me! I seem to recollect some email programs show similar.