Mastodon App Timezone

[shanelord01]

When I go to the Cloudron app terminal and use “date” my Timezone is incorrect.

How do I permanently change this?

[subven]

Setup the correct timezone on your host machine and restart (or reload). Docker uses the same clock as the host so it's on you to fix it. Questionable?

[shanelord01]

@subven Thanks.

[subven]

Oups just saw that there is actual documentation for this case --> Cloudron Timezones

So far the host timezone should not be changed (according to the docs). I have my Timezone set in Cloudron but my docker containers are -1 hour off. This isn't a problem for me but not the expected behavior.

[shanelord01]

@subven Yep - I’ve set the host back to UTC, but the docker container for Mastodon has incorrect local time vs my actual Timezone.

[subven]

@shanelord01 are you able to set the correct timezone within the app itself? I remember doing something like this in Freescout to counteract the wrong time.

[fbartels]

@shanelord01 if Mastodon cannot properly handle timezone information, then this is probably rather something for their issue tracker. I however just made a test, I am currently in UTC+1, while my server is using UTC as the timezone, I sent a toot and the time of sending was shown correctly in the mastodon interface.

[shanelord01]

@fbartels said in Mastodon App Timezone:

@shanelord01 if Mastodon cannot properly handle timezone information, then this is probably rather something for their issue tracker. I however just made a test, I am currently in UTC+1, while my server is using UTC as the timezone, I sent a toot and the time of sending was shown correctly in the mastodon interface.

It seems my interface is showing the latest items in my timeline and federated timeline 12 hours ago...

My post I just made shows the correct time, but the latest posts I have coming in via federated timeline show 12 hours ago? Weird.

[subven]

@fbartels yeah that works but your app terminal still displays UTC (from the host) I guess? This is potentially undesirable behavior since you can set the time zone globally in Cloudron's settings.

[subven]

@shanelord01 said in Mastodon App Timezone:

I have coming in via federated timeline show 12 hours ago? Weird.

Maybe your federation crawling is just slow as hell or configuration is messed up? By the way what timezone are you in and are federation posts off by -12h on the minute?

[shanelord01]

@subven said in Mastodon App Timezone:

@shanelord01 said in Mastodon App Timezone:

I have coming in via federated timeline show 12 hours ago? Weird.

Maybe your federation crawling is just slow as hell or configuration is messed up? By the way what timezone are you in and are federation posts off by -12h on the minute?

I'm in Australia/Sydney

Weirdly when I look at https://universeodon.com/@popsci for example (picked at random from federated), the newest post I see in my federated timeline by them is:

https://universeodon.com/@popsci/109394957345483126

But the latest on their actual instance is https://universeodon.com/@popsci/109397760150760639

How do I fix my federation speed? I haven't changed anything from default settings.

[fbartels]

@subven said in Mastodon App Timezone:

app terminal still displays UTC (from the host) I guess?

Yes, running date in the terminal of the app is still using and showing UTC as the timezone. The Cloudron dashboard is configured to use UTC+1.

From my perspective it is fine if both values don't align. That is why timestamps should include a timezone so that software can properly convert these to the local time of the user.

[girish]

The server and the containers are generally always run in UTC. This just helps in standardization. In general, apps don't use the server/container time zone. On Cloudron, they don't even have access to the server time zone because of permissions. When showing logs in the browser, we try to convert UTC to browser time zone (internal storage is always UTC).

So, anyways, long story short. Do we know for sure Mastodon uses the server/container timezone ?

Think about it, most software needs to support users in different timezone. One single server timezone is really not useful here). Like in this forum.. I am in SF, my colleague is in Germany, the server is in amsterdam. Each user is in their own timezones. Which timezone is it? An app should not rely on server timezones.

[shanelord01]

@girish Fair enough. Now just need to work out why my federated feed is so delayed.

[girish]

@shanelord01 Looking for some obvious issues upstream. Just going through https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/21209 and related tasks to see if we miss something obvious.

[shanelord01]

@girish Even people I follow are delayed. Looking at them from my instance, their latest posts aren’t shown. Choosing “open original page” from their profile shows posts I can’t see on my home timeline.

[nebulon]

@shanelord01 this somehow seems more like a delayed federation issue, things are not really instant on mastodon. I have send you a DM from our cloudron mastodon account just now to see what happens.

[shanelord01]

@nebulon Yep - seems to be due to insufficient processes and threads in config.sh

I'm playing with:

#!/bin/bash

# Setup scaling related environment variables here - https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/scaling/

# Puma
export WEB_CONCURRENCY=10    # number of worker processes
export MAX_THREADS=20        # the number of threads per process

# Streaming API
export STREAMING_CLUSTER_NUM=2  # number of worker processes

# Sidekiq
export SIDEKIQ_THREADS=80
export DB_POOL=100               # must be at least the same as the number of threads

at the moment and it seems to be catching up.