The Movie Database Support

So in many show series that I'm following or helping to edit, there are a number of places to input dates, and places where dates then get displayed—usually (if input correctly) every single one is correct—with the exception (for some strange reason) on the page navigated to: MAIN >> EDIT >> SEASONS >> SEASON 1 >> ORIGINAL AIR DATE—where it is off by one day.

This is an odd/weird problem I've run into multiple times. I believe it might have been pointed out to be a bug—and I wouldn't care much, except that it gets populated down to third party apps such as Trakt, which then displays the bad air date. If this is truly a bug, it seems to be a significant one, and I would like to see it escalated. Oh, and even though the content may not be locked, there is no option to "fix" this date. I can't even figure out why or how that particular date is off—since it's correct everywhere else. IT BUGS ME! lol.

You can see an example at: https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/210077-the-lincoln-project. Literally everywhere there is premiere date, it is correctly shown as October 7, 2022; EXCEPT IN THE OVERVIEW MENU >> MAIN >> EDIT where you navigate as indicated above. And of course if you follow this series over at TRAKT it shows the bad premiere date and then cascades to a bad date thereafter for every new episode.

I've posted it at Lincoln Project Discussion (and also one other show) but someone suggested I post it here to get optimum visibility. I hope this can get fixed—or at least explained. Thanks!

11 replies (on page 1 of 1)

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This issue is timezone dependent. You can read more about it here.

No. I don't think the bug is time zone dependent—that would be weird.

@Silvers_Rayleigh said:

After reading your reply, I went and I changed my timezone in the settings. I set it to Detroit and the "problem" was indeed gone. So this issue is timezone related.

In your example 'Game of Thrones' if you click through the link you gave, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/1399-game-of-thrones/season/1/edit?active_nav_item=episodes you do indeed get the (i assume correct) April 17 date.

However if you click through my steps (above) you land here https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/1399-game-of-thrones/edit?active_nav_item=seasons and it shows the day-earlier-bug of April 16 for the premiere date (I don't have a ready reference for other seasons' premiere dates).

Oddly however the bug, in this instance, does NOT step down to Trakt. I'm not a fan anyway so I wouldn't have caught it, but it further confuses the problem—where some off dates pass on to third party apps, and some don't?

@mazal said:

However if you click through my steps (above) you land here https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/1399-game-of-thrones/edit?active_nav_item=seasons and it shows the day-earlier-bug of April 16 for the premiere date (I don't have a ready reference for other seasons' premiere dates).

On this page, I correctly see (from France) the April 17 date. This seems to confirm that the bug is timezone dependent.

@superboy97 said:

On this page, I correctly see (from France) the April 17 date. This seems to confirm that the bug is timezone dependent.

i wish you could post a pic, cuz i have a hard time believing we're looking at the same page. i tried changing my time zone to match yours and still see April 16. btw, the previous poster said he changed his time zone to Detroit to replicate the "bug" which is not France—lol—but is the same as my time zone. ¯|(ツ)

@mazal said:

@superboy97 said:

On this page, I correctly see (from France) the April 17 date. This seems to confirm that the bug is timezone dependent.

i wish you could post a pic

Here it is.

oh, that's interesting. every season (that i can see) in your image is ahead by one day from my viewpage. it's still a bug in the code somewhere—THAT SHOULD BE FIXED. but thanks.

i'm not a code master, but i still don't see how a few hours difference in time zone would affect the code. you and i are still on the same DAY, and DETROIT and i are only 1 hour difference—how does that affect an offset by an entire day?

you and i are still on the same DAY, and DETROIT and i are only 1 hour difference—how does that affect an offset by an entire day?

Let's assume that we store the date including time, e.g. 2011-04-17 0:00,00. Then, if you distract just one hour, you'll get 2011-04-16 23:00,00, which would explain why you see a 1 day discrepancy. Maybe the culprit isn't time zone change, but daylight saving time change which did occur between October and November depending on your location. Did you experience the problem in the summer?

Maybe the culprit isn't time zone change, but daylight saving time change which did occur between October and November depending on your location.

That's a good point I hadn't considered. Right now, I can't find any incorrect air dates in my time zone (Greece) to check. So, I'm going to have to keep my eye on it for a bit.

Originally, back when I made that other post, my time zone wasn't set correctly. This is (probably) why I could see the wrong air date, and now I can't.

@talestalker said:

Let's assume that we store the date including time, e.g. 2011-04-17 0:00,00. Then, if you distract just one hour, you'll get 2011-04-16 23:00,00, which would explain why you see a 1 day discrepancy.

You're right in your logic talestaker, of course. However I see it happening over and over (in my page view) and so I took it to not be a one-off, perfectly timed, anomaly of a-synchronisation. ALSO, why would it then be off in only one precise space (of a show), and not in all other spots of the same show where that date appears? It's so quirky, that as i said, I would not care much except where it then populates to the apps I use and care about.

Maybe the culprit isn't time zone change, but daylight saving time change which did occur between October and November depending on your location. Did you experience the problem in the summer?

I don't recall when I first spotted it—but it's now been over a long period of months, so I'd say probably yes. The shows affected, that I can recall are:

  1. American Rust (2021)
  2. Abraham Lincoln (2022)
  3. The Lincoln Project (2022)***
  4. The Game of Thrones (all seasons)

***Only The Lincoln Project (most recent of this list) continues to show wrong date —on Trakt— I don't know if powers that be over at Trakt manually correct the date, or how it's getting updated. But at the time of viewing it was off—and how I noticed. All of these continue to be off on TMDB (from my page view). Finally, I just want to emphasize premiere date is off in only one particular spot in each show and not everywhere of the same show.

Btw, I appreciate everybody's input. thank you.

Important note from trello:

Add released time to episode air dates

Right now, the assumption on the air date field is that the date entered is the earliest day that an episode is made available in its origin country.

This can cause some issues with date and time calculations for series that are released at 00:00 UTC. For example, an American series that is released on Thursday @ 00:00 is technically available on Wednesday night in the U.S, so the Wednesday date is entered.

I think an improvement here would be to add an optional time input, so that we can then do the offset time calculation ourselves.

The card was moved from Backlog to Started yesterday. So, we can expect an update on this soon™.

@Silvers_Rayleigh said:

Important note from trello:

Add released time to episode air dates

Right now, the assumption on the air date field is that the date entered is the earliest day that an episode is made available in its origin country.

This can cause some issues with date and time calculations for series that are released at 00:00 UTC. For example, an American series that is released on Thursday @ 00:00 is technically available on Wednesday night in the U.S, so the Wednesday date is entered.

I think an improvement here would be to add an optional time input, so that we can then do the offset time calculation ourselves.

The card was moved from Backlog to Started yesterday. So, we can expect an update on this soon™.

https://trello.com/c/eZ2o4jmD#action-65d8cce37f28fbd0394c6c46 Not anymore cries Now back to backlog! Need this fixed!!

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