Phone picks up wrong time zone when connected to Sure Signal box

[greyhound82]

Hi,

I have my phone (an HTC One M8) set to use the time zone and date provided by the network.  Until recently I'd never had a problem when travelling across Europe, but I've just installed a Sure Signal box at home and now my phone regularly switches to GMT-4:30, and the location is picked up as Maracay, Venezuela!

The Sure Signal is registered to my home in Kent, England, so I've no idea where it's getting Venezuela from...?  Is this an issue which Vodafone can fix on their end?

Thanks very much,

Graham.

[drey_p]

Hi there

I believe that this sort of thing feeds through from the location services provided by your broadband supplier.

One possibility is that you have been assigned a new IP address from a recently registered range that is incorrectly reporting the location.  This does happen sometimes.   The only way past this is to turn your broadband router off for a while and that will hopefully assign you with a new IP.   

[greyhound82]

Hi,

I tried entering my external IP address on iplocation.net and it's reporting my location (Sevenoaks, Kent) correctly.  Also none of the other devices on my network think we're in Venezuela, including a (non Vodafone) mobile.  The problem seems to be specific to the Vodafone Sure Signal.

I've tried restarted it a couple of times but so far it hasn't helped.  Perhaps the VPN that the Sure Signal uses is reporting a dodgy IP?  Maybe tech support could take a look?  Is there any way to retrieve detailed stats from the Sure Signal box which might help?  Please let me know if there's anything I can provide.  My Sure Signal serial number is 42151419506.

Thanks very much,

Graham.

[drey_p]

Did you just restart it or did you leave it off for a while?  If you just restarted it, it can hold on to the IP address that you previously had. 

[greyhound82]

Hi,

I just tried again, leaving both the router and Sure Signal switched off for 5 - 10 minutes.  Started up the router and checked the external IP to ensure it has changed.  Then switched on the Sure Signal.  It took a while to initialize but when the signal came up, my phone immediately connected to it and set the location to Venezuela again!

I walked to the study to type this message (which is out of range of the Sure Signal so phone will be connecting to the local mast macrocell instead) and the time corrected itself.  Walk to the lounge again, it picks up the Sure Signal and says I'm in Venezuela.

I could return the Sure Signal box for another one in the Vodafone store but it feels like a config problem somewhere rather than hardware related, so would rather not waste the stores time.  Is there anything I could try?

Thanks again for your advice,

Graham.

[drey_p]

I think this is going to take one of the eForum Team to look into what is going on.  They'll be in touch as soon as they can.

In the meantime, you should be able to disable the automatic update of the time and also the automatic update of the timezone.  At least that way your phone will remain on UK time until this can be fixed.

[Retired-Wayne]

@greyhound82

The department I need to speak to regarding this is closed today.

I’ll speak to them tomorrow and get back to you as soon as I know more.

[Retired-Wayne]

@greyhound82

I’ve checked with our engineers and the services that the Sure Signal run through, are showing the correct time.

I can only imagine that it’s your ISP that’s causing the incorrect time.

I’d suggest turning auto time zone off on your phone.

[greyhound82]

Hi,

Yes I tried resetting the router several more times and the problem has solved itself now.  Perhaps the IP addresses assigned to me from the first few attempts were from the same bad block.

Either way thanks very much for all your help!

Graham.

[Jenny]

@greyhound82 - I’m pleased this is working again now.