Issues with Plasma Digital Clock Widget

[BenjB83]

Hello all,

first of all, I have Kubuntu installed for some days now and the transition went smoothly and without problems.. In fact I love it and I wouldn't wanna miss it anymore. However, there is a problem I ran into:

I have set up my time to Venezuelan Time (VET) in the system settings. Everything is set up correctly and works fine. However: The digital clock widget in the taskbar shows the wrong time, actually the system time +1 additional hour. As I said, system time is correct and timedatectl does also show the correct time. The only issue I get is if I run the ntp command, that it keeps saying .INIT. without actually initializing, though timedatectl says that it does sync and in whatever case, the time is correct. I suppose there is a bug of the widget getting the wrong time, however I wasn't able to find the appropriate file or folder to make any changes.

A different thing I noticed: The time zone selection of the clock widget has way more options in it, then the timezone list in system settings. There are timezones without names, like UTC -1, UTC -2, etc. The Digital Clock Widget shows the correct time, which supports that it is a widget error.

Please advice. Thanks in advance.

[Teunis]

There are settings for regions that select more than just the time but also the way this part of the world likes to display certain things like currency and time.

So you can select to be in Germany, pay in euros and still have the time displayed in the USA AM/PM format.

There are also settings to specify what city (or time zone) you are in, in your case I assume Caracas.

It could be set up in a smarter way but the options are thre.

[BenjB83]

That is exactly how I have set it up. In the system setting the time appears correct. However in the digital clock widget, the time is one hour ahead (even though the time is set to Caracas). If I switch to a different widget for example the analog clock or the other, the time displays correctly. Besides that: In the setting menu of the widget, there are far more time zones, than there are in the system settings. Some time zones there don't even exist in system settings.

I am fairly sure that it is a bug with the widget, that is somehow getting the wrong time for Caracas (maybe some DST setting accidently enabled in the setting ((though Venezuela doesn't have DST)). I have read on KDE Boards, that another venezuelan guy had that issue. However, he claimed that it was a confirmed bug that was fixed... apparently it is not..

I have so far been unable to fine a way to check or change the config files of the digital clock widget to find the error. I am fairly sure it's an easy fix for someone who knows where to look.

[Teunis]

I think I see what you mean.

In the Time section of System Settings I changed my location to Caracas and the clock tells me it's 20:25 while the date command gives 19:25 (VET, -0430)
.

[BenjB83]

Exactly. The time shown in the system time is correct, the widget shows the wrong time... but just the digital clock one. The others are fine. If you go on the widget config you will see there are loads more time zones and options in it to select from as well.. some duplicate and some no names, simply named UTC something which are the same as the other just without name.

Since it is exactly one hour I suppose it either gets the wrong time zone or - most probably - it has a DST setting enabled which is invisible. In fact that is the only logical choice. Because Venezuela is UTC - 4,30. That said, we are a very rare time zone with a media hour difference... hence there is no time zone UTC -5,30. It is most likely some DST issue.. or maybe the time in the widget config is set wrongly... someone by accident pushed 5 instead of 4.... I was spending some time looking through the widget files in the KDE folder but I could not find any config file that had this information. The system related files in the zone folder, etc. are just fine and timedatectl shows the correct time. Hence it is an issue with the widget.

[Teunis]

Yes it seems the problem is in the widget, not the way time is handled by the tzdata configuration.

So you'll have to find the author of this plasma widget.
Or it's configuration file.

[BenjB83]

Heh I will have another look in order to see if I can find the config File.
Any hints on where to look would be appreciated.

Bedankt.. Dank u well...

[Teunis]

I saw a forum (Arch?) post somewhere mentioning it's fixed in Plasma 5.5.
And it's part of the Akonadi bundle.

[BenjB83]

I read something similar on the kde forums, where I guy from Venezuela said it was fixed... now this might sound noobish, but I did not find said update.. at least the update manager did not come up with anything and apt-get upgrade / update did remain fruitless as well.

Any advice would be appreciated. Either way, I will keep doing some investigation to see what I can come up with.

[drmaria]

Hello all,

first of all, I have Kubuntu installed for some days now and the transition went smoothly and without problems.. In fact I love it and I wouldn't wanna miss it anymore. However, there is a problem I ran into:

I have set up my time to Venezuelan Time (VET) in the system settings. Everything is set up correctly and works fine. However: The digital clock widget in the taskbar shows the wrong time, actually the system time +1 additional hour. As I said, system time is correct and timedatectl does also show the correct time. The only issue I get is if I run the ntp command, that it keeps saying .INIT. without actually initializing, though timedatectl says that it does sync and in whatever case, the time is correct. I suppose there is a bug of the widget getting the wrong time, however I wasn't able to find the appropriate file or folder to make any changes.

A different thing I noticed: The time zone selection of the clock widget has way more options in it, then the timezone list in system settings. There are timezones without names, like UTC -1, UTC -2, etc. The Digital Clock Widget shows the correct time, which supports that it is a widget error.

Please advice. Thanks in advance.

Yes, I fully agree with this. I also experienced the same after I updated my distro. I could not set the clock automatically. Every restart of the laptop causing the time to change randomly. I tried several solutions online, but none of them worked. Then I experienced other issues too. For example, I have 12GB ram; but 'KInfocenter' is showing only 3.8GB RAM on the first screen. When I click the 'Memory' tab, it is showing correctly as 12 GB.

I found rolling back the updates is very complicated and always not accurate. So tomorrow, I will format my machine and re-install 15.10 stable.

[BenjB83]

Hey,

I think your post is not related to mine, as I don't have any issue with the clock itself, but only with the widget. Also the time is not changing randomly but works fine - besides the one hour difference I have on the issue. I am running 15.10. I was not aware there was a newer version out yet. However, I have been told that the best way to go is upgrading to LTS versions, as they are most stable (not saying that the regular versions are bad, but the LTS versions just have 2 years of testing and work in it... ).

[Teunis]

There are all kinds of problems in Kubuntu 15.10, there is a reason it is an intermediate release but we also have to realise Plasma 5 is still in heavy development.

It would surprise me greatly if the QT and KDE developers get all the wrinkles ironed out by 16.04 so for stability you are at the moment best off with 14.04.

Btw, the 3.8GB of RAM could mean you're running a 32-bit system.
I have 8 GB and it is reported the same both on the front page and memory section, same for the 'free' command.

Success to all strugglers

[BenjB83]

That's what I am waiting for... 16.4. Thanks god it's not too long... besides that, 15.10 is running very well and with only minor issues... Then once I am with 16.4 I will wait for the next LTS before upgrade, if there isn't any good reason to do so before... :P

On a different note: Even with the bugs and issues 15.10 has, it is way better and much more reliable then any windows was, maybe aside from 3.11 :P So it's still a fair deal.

[BenjB83]

Well, I think we can close that. I just got some information about a 150MB Update which included serveral packages and security update. Including an update of KDE. That has not only made the Desktop much nicer, but also fixed the issue - along with some other minor things. So far I did not find any other issue that has occurred as a result of the update.

Great work done!!!

Cheers,

Ben

[drmaria]

thanks for your posts. Apparently the latest distro that I am using is still under development. So, I just re-installed my old distro 15.10 back. It just took 20 minutes - I used systemback; tada! everything including data, user settings, preferences - all back to normal.