Timestamps are now off since version 7.4.2 and v7.5

[turn3636]

Using Node with MS SQL Server. Issues was with 7.4.2 and still there after updating to 7.5.

This is long and a little confusing, stay with me..

Something is off with the timestamps, again, and my customer is pretty pissed. Someone please help me understand these timestamps and why out of the blue they start changing.

Our apps all revolve around timestamps, it’s the core of our product so they have to be accurate. We don’t use time zones. We don’t use UTC. We capture a date/time from the client and insert that directly into our MS Sql Server database. There was an issue a couple of years ago with timezone data and we were able to resolve that by replacing the ‘Z’ at the end of the date/time string. So, when it comes over in the JSON as:

TotalDoorTimeStart: "2025-06-07T14:32:23.000Z"

We format it to remove the Z,
{{TotalDoorTimeStart.replace(‘Z’,’’).formatDate('hh:mm a')}}

And we get the actual datetime coming from the server. Now, since 7.4.2, it’s off by one hour and it appears to be because the web server the Node server is on has eastern time, and I’m in central time. Here are some more screenshots:

This is in the local browser from the local development machine accessing the database server over a vpn. The database server is in the eastern time zone, I’m in central.
This time is correct. I just entered it at 8:01 pm central time. Here it is in the database:

And in the UI on the localhost of the dev server in the central time zone.

Here they are in the JSON array:

However.. Here it is going through our production server, that has eastern time, connecting to the same database server, eastern time, but on the browser on my computer in central time.

It’s an hour off. It should not be off since it should be converting to my local time. My guess is it’s because the Node server on production is in eastern, my local dev is in central. BUT it’s connecting to the same data.

My time setting for my project is set to OS default, as it has been since the start of this project over a year ago. Only update I made was a publish of the whole site, now timestamps are off.

Here it is, same browser on my machine. One is production server, one is my local dev:

Is it something on my local node dev server that is different from the Node server in production? Is there a conflict with the production server and the database driver used by Wappler?

I can’t have my timestamps manipulated. I don’t want UTC conversion, timezone conversion, just directly from the database. What comes from the database has got to be what the customer sees. What can I do to make sure that the data I display in the browser, no matter what time zone it is in, is the exact timestamp from the server?

Please help

[brad]

What could have happened is when the time zones changed a couple weeks ago, the server didn't get updated and would be an hour off.

[turn3636]

That’s a good thought Brad, thanks.

I checked and the time is correct on both production servers. Beyond that though, I should be able to pass the date time stamp from the database directly to the browser without any offsets, no matter what time the server is set to.

[Teodor]

Have you checked the following article?

Date and Time Settings for NodeJS

Intro In this tutorial we will explain the different date and time settings available for NodeJS and how to handle time zone options. Server Time Zone You can set the server time zone settings depending on your needs. The settings depend on if your are using Docker or not. Using Docker When you are using Docker, then you can adjust the server time zone settings in the target settings: [Screenshot_2] You can select UTC or your specific time zone from the list: [Screenshot_3] Not Using D…

[turn3636]

Thanks Teo.

I did check those settings for the database options. When I opened it, the Timezone handling dropdown was null. When I clicked on it my options are the 3, UTC, Local and Driver Dependent.

The one that worked was “Local”, or seems to be working. I pulled an archive of my connection file and it has not changed since 4/2025 and here it is set for UTC:

I know this has worked for this site. I made no time setting changes nor did I modify any of the hundreds of times I display time on the screen. I know these were accurate up until a publish with 7.4.2 on Monday because people’s pay depend on these timestamps and they have been accurate all this time.
Is it possible something else changed in the server connect files or the database driver recently?

I’m glad I got it working, but I should not have had to make this change. I checked my other sites and I don’t have any of them set to local, they are set to UTC and the timestamps are accurate, but I also have not published to them in a couple of weeks. It’s concerning that without modifying anything, I know have to change my timestamp settings to make it work like it always had.