This is an open apology to 1&1 Customer Service, who I thoroughly chewed out over the phone for a problem that was caused by WordPress 2.9 update messing with my time zone.

I stopped updating my blog since December 19th because my website started to show a local time that was 5 hours ahead. Naturally, I assumed that the problem was with 1&1 because PHP only calls for the server's local time. The PHP time script does not manipulate or change the local time. Therefore, they must have switched my domain over to a server in the United Kingdom or something.

When I contacted 1&1 Customer Service, the customer representative began to speak in "double-talk." I've heard of this term before, but I've never had double-talk used on me. The best way to describe it is slurred unintelligible speech combined with real words. I had absolutely no clue what the lady was actually saying but she ended her sentences in a questioning tone? so I hesitantly said "uh huh" each time. The conversation ended 46 minutes later with the problem unaddressed.

I received a follow-up E-mail stating that they found the source of my problem:

Your script <?php echo(date("H:i m/d/y")); ?> is working fine too as tested.
Which means that the problem has something to do with the rest of the script in your site. Please double check your script.


I immediately called 1&1 back and explained to them that the script echo(date("H:i m/d/y")) was to show them exactly WHAT was wrong with the website and that the problem is on their end. They sent me another E-mail stating that they dropped a file with my PHP timestamp into the directory and the problem really wasn't the server's… ergo it was my code.

I had a growing suspicion that it was the Wordpress 2.9 update that caused it, but I double-checked the time-zone settings within WordPress and it seemed correct. Today, I was referred to a blog post: WordPress 2.9 – When’s the Time Zone Set? which confirmed my suspicions AND resolved the problem.

1&1 has always been faithful to me. I should trust my web host more.
WordPress on the other hand…

Tags: 1&1, customer service, domain, PHP, server, timestamp, WordPress, WordPress time zone problem

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 4:00 pm and is filed under News, Website, WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.