TIC Scheduling and Time Zones

Toad Intelligence Central
1

Hi, I have been trying to setup some scheduled tasks in TIC and I have noticed some unusual behavior regarding the time I was setting for the task to execute.

My setup is

  1. Client: WIN7 Laptop (TZ GMT) running TDP 3.8
  2. TIC Server: WIN7 VM on Server (TZ GMT) Running TIC 2.7
  3. DB: Oracle DB (TZ UTC - 7).
    Now I wanted to check which timezone I should set the the schedule in as TDP stated that all times are according to server time
    warning.jpeg
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    so I was confused if this was the TIC Server or oracle DB Server. So at 11am GMT I set a "One Time" execution for 11.10am GMT. The Script ran with no issues so I assumed that the time was set to the TIC server (GMT) and I configured the task to run at 5am every morning. The next day I checked to see if the task had run but there was no Log of the task. I checked the scheduled task and could see that it said its next runtime was 5am that morning but obviously it didn't run. Now I could not check if the task would run later that day because the TIC server was at 11am and the Oracle DB was 3am and you cannot schedule a task in the past.

So to fix this I changed the TIC Server timezone to match the Oracle DB Time zone and then retested the task at 3.30am (11.30am GMT) and then the task worked correctly?

Can someone confirm that this is normal behavior? How does the "One Time" setup trigger at the TIC server timezone but the daily automation Trigger at the DB timezone?

R,

Trevor

2

What you are describing is very unusual. I will say that both automation and snapshot scheduling both use the TIC timezone, so your assumption that it would have ran at 5 am GMT is correct. The time on the DB server should have nothing to do with it.

3

Now that I look at it, you are saying that both your client and the TIC Server are on GMT. Despite that, you are getting that timezone difference message, so I think I am a little confused here.

Can you verify the timezone on the Server? You could run the following sql to get the offset:

SELECT TIMEDIFF(NOW(), UTC_TIMESTAMP)

And I am a bit confused when you said you retested and it worked correctly. What did you do? Did you reschedule the script?

4

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the Response,

OK just to clear up your question

"And I am a bit confused when you said you retested and it worked correctly. What did you do?"

I changed the Timezone of the TIC server and rescheduled the task and this seemed to work BUT this morning I noticed that the VM has reverted to GMT Timezone and the task did not get triggered. Now this could be due to the fact I rebooted the system yesterday.

Anyway I took your advice and checked the Timezone difference on the TIC server and I get -7 hrs which is a bit strange because both the Client PC and Server are showing the same timezone.

NOTE: Everything I do from here is on 1 PC which is my TIC server (Win7 VM) which now has TDP installed and the OS Timezone is GMT.

So I decided to investigate a bit further so I logged into the TIC server and opened TDP (which I have also installed on the TIC server), now this is where it gets a bit strange.

  1. In TDP (on the TIC server) I connected to the TIC server and open editor and check the server time difference and I get -7 hrs.
  2. In TDP (on the TIC server) I connect to "Local storage connection" Data and open the editor and check the Server Time difference and I get +1 hrs (GMT)? Ok this is a bit strange because both are on the same PC
    So in this Test even though TDP and TIC reside on the same PC (win 7 VM TIC SERVER) they are reporting different time zones?

Now I tried to create a new automation with both a "One Time Event" trigger = 11am plus a scheduled time 11.15am. @ 11am the "One Time Event" tirggers and the task runs. @ 11.15am nothing happens.

Then I noticed that my original task was set to run at 3.40am UTC = 11.40am GMT and it got triggered. So "One Time Event" does not equal the scheduled time event triggers.

Below are some example screenshots showing the conflicting information in TDP and TIC.

In the first screenshot from the TIC Admin on the server you can see that the schedule shows the task as running at 03.40 AM and it states the last run was at 03.40am but the log shows the run at 11.40?

The second screenshot shows TDP on the TIC server and I am connected to the TIC server and "Local storage connection" data and each are showing different times.

  1. 0160.TimeZone.png

  2. 0160.TimeZone_diff.png
    0160.TimeZone_diff.png928×872 68.2 KB

    R,

Trevor.

5

I think there may be some weirdness in what timezone the session you are on is set to. Under normal circumstances, it should be the same as the OS timezone. Can you run this SQL and give me the output?

SELECT @@global.time_zone, @@session.time_zone;

If a value says ‘SYSTEM’, then it should be set to the timezone of the OS.

As for why one-time run uses one timezone and scheduling uses another, I think that is an error we may need to look into.

6

Hi Ryan,

The results are

@@global.time_zone
@@session.time_zone
SYSTEM
SYSTEM
But when you mentioned session time in your comment an alarm bell went off in my head. I was logged in via VMware Horizon Client which I remembered that depending on the setup could be adjusting the session time to sync to the client time so I reconnected under RDP and my session time was completely different, it was set to UTC -7. So I rechecked all my timezone under TDP and they now matched between the Local Connection and TIC Server so next I reset the VM Timezone to GMT and rebooted.

After the Reboot I logged in under RDP and rescheduled and now the issue has been resolved.

I would have never thought about the session time for VMware only that you had mentioned it so Thank You.

R,

Trevor