I have no knowledge on this subject so i asked ai and it looks legit to me. what say you?
AI Overview
Collabora Office often shows a different time than the host system (GhostBSD) because it uses the server's time settings rather than the browser or client-side time, often defaulting to UTC
. To fix this discrepancy, you must ensure the container running Collabora has the correct timezone environment variable or that the host GhostBSD system is correctly synced via NTP.
Here are the methods to synchronize the time:
1. Fix GhostBSD System Time First
Before troubleshooting the application, ensure GhostBSD itself is accurately reporting time and using NTP.
- Enable NTP: Use
sysrc ntp_enable=yes to enable the Network Time Protocol daemon in /etc/rc.conf.
- Sync on Startup: Use
sysrc ntpd_sync_on_start=yes to ensure the time is updated immediately upon booting.
- Start NTP: Run
service ntpd start.
- Set Timezone: Run
tzsetup to ensure GhostBSD is set to your correct local timezone.
2. Configure Collabora Container Timezone
If you are running Collabora in a Docker container (e.g., via Nextcloud/TrueNAS), you need to pass the correct timezone to the container.
- Set Environment Variable: In your Docker configuration, add the following environment variable:
TZ=America/New_York (Replace with your specific timezone, e.g., Europe/London, UTC, etc.).
- Restart Container: Restart the Collabora container to apply the changes.
3. Adjusting "Time" in Documents (Insert -> Time)
If this issue occurs when inserting a timestamp into a document (e.g., cell/field), note that Collabora has historically used the server time rather than the client browser time.
- Verify Update: Recent updates have aimed to improve client-side time recognition, but ensuring the container has the correct timezone (Step 2) is the most reliable fix.
4. Verify Timezone Setting in App Config
If you installed via a GUI (like TrueNAS Apps), look for a Timezone setting during the container configuration steps.
If the time is specifically five hours ahead, it is highly likely that GhostBSD is correctly set to local time, but the container is defaulting to UTC (often a 5-hour difference from EST).
