Post age shown wrong

  • Thread starter Thread starter PaMu1337
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PaMu1337

PaMu1337

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PaMu1337
There seems to be something wrong with the time settings of the website. All post times ("posted x minutes ago") are showing as 33 minutes more than they actually are. Immediately after posting something, it says the post is 33 minutes old.

Picture of this post immediately after posting:
1000019185.webp
 
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PaMu1337
There seems to be something wrong with the time settings of the website. All post times ("posted x minutes ago") are showing as 33 minutes more than they actually are. Immediately after posting something, it says the post is 33 minutes old.

Picture of this post immediately after posting:
View attachment 1475717
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Jordan

Post in thread 'Posting from the future: how exactly does this happen?'

That's correct, the "relative" timestamps are just calculated by comparing your system's time with the server's timestamp on the post. There is no queue.

I'm not seeing any issue with the server's time, so the issue would have to be caused by a system time or browser issue. If your system's time is correct, future timestamps can still be caused by caching bugs in the browser which should be fixed by refreshing the page.
 
My system time is correct though. Refreshing doesn't help. Actually when I refresh the page, it shows correctly for a second, and then adds 33 minutes.
When I load the site in a private tab, it does show correctly though. It looks like the site is caching some things it shouldn't be caching.
 
PaMu1337
When I load the site in a private tab, it does show correctly though.
Click to expand...
If it doesn't occur in private mode it firmly suggests that it's a browser issue as noted by @Jordan in his post. Have you tried a force cache refresh with Ctrl+F5?

Edit: Is that a yes or a no? I can't tell.
 
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Famine
If it doesn't occur in private mode it firmly suggests that it's a browser issue as noted by @Jordan in his post. Have you tried a force cache refresh with Ctrl+F5?
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It actually very firmly suggests that the website itself is caching something. Private mode just doesn't allow the website to access any info it stored. The fact that it reports fine in private mode and other websites shows that the browser is reporting its time correctly, and the issue is in the cached info from the website itself.

Edit: after a while it started showing correctly again
 
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Something similar frequently happens to me, definitely on mobile Firefox, unsure about desktop Firefox, but I'd been unable to prove it until now.

Joey's post is twenty-four minutes further in the past according to his post's timestamp. Note the time in the top left.

Screenshot_20250830_032656_Firefox.webp
 
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I'm not aware of any time issues with the site, everything appears to be normal.
PaMu1337
It actually very firmly suggests that the website itself is caching something. Private mode just doesn't allow the website to access any info it stored. The fact that it reports fine in private mode and other websites shows that the browser is reporting its time correctly, and the issue is in the cached info from the website itself.

Edit: after a while it started showing correctly again
Click to expand...
Post time stamps are immutable. The only server-side calculations involve adjusting the displayed time to account for the time zone selected in a user's account settings, but the time stamp itself remains the same. Relative time stamps ("33 minutes ago") are calculated entirely inside the browser, fully dependent on the time it reports.

The most interesting thing about Private Mode is the fact it typically runs with browser plugins disabled. I don't know what was causing your problem, but I suspect a browser plugin or privacy setting was somehow at fault (see below).

Liquid
Something similar frequently happens to me, definitely on mobile Firefox, unsure about desktop Firefox, but I'd been unable to prove it until now.

Joey's post is twenty-four minutes further in the past according to his post's timestamp. Note the time in the top left.
Click to expand...
Firefox has a privacy "feature" which will intentionally misreport the time and break the relative time stamps here. You can check to see if you have that enabled.
 
Jordan
I'm not aware of any time issues with the site, everything appears to be normal.

Post time stamps are immutable. The only server-side calculations involve adjusting the displayed time to account for the time zone selected in a user's account settings, but the time stamp itself remains the same. Relative time stamps ("33 minutes ago") are calculated entirely inside the browser, fully dependent on the time it reports.

The most interesting thing about Private Mode is the fact it typically runs with browser plugins disabled. I don't know what was causing your problem, but I suspect a browser plugin or privacy setting was somehow at fault (see below).
Click to expand...
The fact that it's fine on the server side does not mean there isn't an issue with the website. The client side code may still have a bug in calculating the offset.

This issue has occured for me several times over the last few days, and only on GTPlanet. All other websites are correctly showing anything based on my browser time.

What I find odd, is that it initially shows the time correctly, and then after a second or so, switches to the wrong time. This suggests that at least initially, the calculation is able to correctly get the time from my browser. Only after that, something gets messed up and it breaks. Refreshing the page does not fix the issue, but again flashes the correct time, and then switches to the wrong time again (with the same offset). Same for closing the tab and reopening. After a few hours, the problem seems to fix itself, only to return again a few more hours later.

I don't run any browser plugins or have any special privacy settings.

For completeness sake, I am also running Firefox mobile.

Firefox has a privacy "feature" which will intentionally misreport the time and break the relative time stamps here. You can check to see if you have that enabled.
Click to expand...
The Firefox resist fingerprinting feature should only report different timezones to my understanding. There is no timezone with a 33 minute offset (or any of the other offsets I've seen over the last few days), so that wouldn't explain it. Also, the calculation of relative timestamps should be respecting the reported timezone, so the relative time should still be correct.
 
The specificity and consistency of the offset is very odd, indeed.

I used Firefox Mobile on my Android testing device but was still never able to replicate the issue.
 

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