Datetime fields are shifted when queried

[balpert89]

When querying the events in my exchange-based calendar I can see events which show up with drifted dates:

sctime should be 2025-12-12 13:30:00 +0100
ectime should be 2025-12-12 14:00:00 +0100
not sure about rctime, but its date should be definitely 2025-12-19 instead of 2025-12-26.

Used version: 3.10.2 installed with homebrew.

The event is a recurring one, if you require more data I am happy to provide this 👍

[balpert89]

For further debugging, I have created a recurring event which ends after 4 occurences:

But the recurring events (not the first one) have shifted datetimes:

icalpal -c events --ic=Kalender --from=today --to=+10 -n --ea -ojson | jq '.[]| select(.title=="New Event")|.sctime'
"2025-12-09 17:30:00 +0100"
"2025-12-10 18:30:00 +0100"
"2025-12-11 18:30:00 +0100"
"2025-12-12 18:30:00 +0100"

[ajrosen]

This is... odd. I haven't been able to duplicate it. There are a couple of changes to the command line that should show everything related to time and recurrence.

• Add --norc --nrd --df %c -d info to the icalPal options
• Change the jq filter to jq -r '.[] | select(.title=="New Event") | [ .start_date, .end_date, .orig_date, .rend_date, .duration, .count, .frequency, .interval, .specifier, .sdate, .edate, .sctime, .ectime, .sseconds, .eseconds ] | @csv'

[balpert89]

Yes. I have redacted some info in the log output:

[INFO ] 08:37:16.853 [icalPal:   66] - Options:
{"ab":"!","aep":[],"bullet":"•","cf":"/Users/xxx/.icalpal","cmd":"events","color":false,"days":10,"db":["/Users/xxx/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.calendar/Calendar.sqlitedb","/Users/xxx/Library/Calendars/Calendar.sqlitedb"],"debug":"info","df":"%c","ea":true,"ec":[],"eed":false,"eep":[],"el":[],"es":[],"et":[],"from":"Thu Dec 11 08:37:16 2025","ic":["Kalender"],"iep":["title","location","notes","url","attendees","datetime"],"il":[],"is":[],"it":[],"li":0,"match":null,"n":true,"nnr":"\n       ","norc":true,"now":false,"nrd":true,"output":"json","props":["title","location","notes","url","attendees","datetime"],"ps":["\n    "],"r":false,"ruby":"3.4.7","sa":false,"sc":false,"sd":false,"sed":false,"sep":false,"sort":"sctime","sp":false,"ss":"\n------------------------","tf":"%-I:%M %p","to":"Sun Dec 21 23:59:59 2025","uid":false,"version":"3.10.2"}
[INFO ] 08:37:17.014 [icalPal:  113] - Loaded 4708 rows from /Users/xxx/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.calendar/Calendar.sqlitedb
[INFO ] 08:37:17.014 [icalPal:  156] - Window is Thu Dec 11 08:37:16 2025 to Sun Dec 21 23:59:59 2025
[INFO ] 08:37:17.149 [icalPal:  239] - Sorting 37 items by ["sctime", "sdate"], reverse nil
787159800,787161600,,,1800,4,1,1,,"Thu Dec 11 16:30:00 2025","Thu Dec 11 17:00:00 2025","2025-12-11 16:30:00 +0100","2025-12-11 17:00:00 +0100",1765467000,1765468800
787159800,787161600,,,1800,4,1,1,,"Fri Dec 12 16:30:00 2025","Fri Dec 12 17:00:00 2025","2025-12-12 17:30:00 +0100","2025-12-12 18:00:00 +0100",1765467000,1765468800
787159800,787161600,,,1800,4,1,1,,"Sat Dec 13 16:30:00 2025","Sat Dec 13 17:00:00 2025","2025-12-13 17:30:00 +0100","2025-12-13 18:00:00 +0100",1765467000,1765468800
787159800,787161600,,,1800,4,1,1,,"Sun Dec 14 16:30:00 2025","Sun Dec 14 17:00:00 2025","2025-12-14 17:30:00 +0100","2025-12-14 18:00:00 +0100",1765467000,1765468800

sdate and related seems to be okay.

[ajrosen]

Ok, I found that if your timezone is east of UTC (UTC+01:00) then it's adding that offset to the recurrences. It does not subtract the offset if you're on or west of UTC.

[ajrosen]

I've just released version 4.0.0 which should fix this.

[tylerwince]

@ajrosen I'm still seeing this on version 4.1.0

[ajrosen]

@tylerwince Is your timezone east of UTC?

Does 4.1.1 fix it? It includes a fix for a related/similar issue.