
Either my email timestamps are wrong or my calendar appointment times are wrong; I have to choose
This is a weird one. For a few months now, I've had to deal with either my email timestamps being wrong, or my calendar appointment times being wrong.
I'm on Linux. I can replicate this with both the Flatpak and my distribution package.
By default, my email timestamps are fine. But my calendar appointment times are out by around 17 hours (that is, Thunderbird says they are happening 17 hours earlier than they actually are). I compare this to my Fossify Calendar app on my phone, which I had to install recently so I had a single source of truth, which is always correct. (It uses davx5 OSE as a bridge)
So the appointments themselves...are fine. My other calendar app can display them okay.
If I want to get the appointment times to display correctly, the only way is to set an environment variable. Regardless of whether I set my timezone manually in Calendar settings or use the system timezone (which is correct!), nothing changes. This is the only way to get it to work:
``` TZ=Australia/AEST thunderbird ```
or:
``` TZ=Australia/AEST flatpak run org.mozilla.Thunderbird ```
Now, my appointment times are correct...but my email timestamps are off! They are 11 hours behind what they should be. Despite this being my actual timezone.
I don't know what else to do. Please, is there any way to get my timestamps consistent for both my email and my appointments?
(sequel to this thread: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1506824 )
All Replies (1)
Corollary:
The Date header for my email:
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2025 14:24:06 +0000
By default it displays correctly as having been received on July 17 2025 00:24 +1000. And that's what the Received header says.
When I set the TZ=Australia/AEST environment variable, I get this:
Received: Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:24:14 +1000 Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2025 14:24:06 +0000
But now the Date header is displayed. So the headers themselves are consistent. But they are being swapped (i.e. the datetime that displays in the UI) depending on whether I set the environment variable or not.
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