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Help Time and Date issues on phone

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pyronuc

Lurker
I live near a time-zone border, and so I have always kept my phone locked to my time zone by disabling the "Automatic Time Zone" option on the phone. It has worked well in the past. However, I recently noticed an issue where when/if I turn the phone off and back on again, the time and date defaults to Sunday Oct 14, 2018, 22:38. Every time. I don't know what changed on my phone, or when the change happened, because I don't often reboot my phone. I went into settings -> general management -> date and time, and I meant to verify the settings. I expected to see "automatic date and time" selected (I thought somehow this had been turned off), and to see "automatic time zone" NOT selected, in order to keep my phone locked onto Central Time (GMT-05:00).

I swear on my life that it USED to have these two settings, "automatic date and time" and "automatic time zone." Now? I don't know when it happened, but now I only have "automatic date and time." If I DISABLE "automatic date and time" it will allow me to manually select a specific time zone, but then any time I reboot the phone, it will always revert back to 10/14/18 22:38. I can't have that, I need my time to update itself automatically, as it should. BUT...I can't be having my phone switching back and forth between 2 different time zones, because then I am losing/gaining an hour every time it swaps. What happened to the "automatic time zone" option that you could turn off when you left "automatic date and time" turned on? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, but I SWEAR I could ALWAYS set the phone up this way!

The other issue is why is the date and time resetting itself each and every time the phone is turned off and back on? Why is it reverting to a date/time 2 months in the future (as of the time I write this post)? That date/time hasn't even happened yet! Even if it is in manual mode, with "automatic date and time" turned off, shouldn't it maintain the correct time even when I power cycle the phone? Not only that, but if I am forced to keep my phone set to "automatic date and time" off, that means the phone will either gain or lose time (because quartz watches are not entirely accurate) over time, and the phone will NOT update for DST corrections when the time changes. Am I forced to keep the time and date set to manual, and periodically switch to auto to refresh it?

Details:
Samsung Galaxy Note 8, Verizon version
Software updated to N950USQU4CRF3 on June 30, 2018 at 05:42
Model: SM-N950U
Android version: 8.0.0
Build number: R16NW.N950USQU4CRF3
Kernel Version: 4.4.78
Not Rooted

My questions I need help with:
1) When "Automatic Date And Time" is turned on, where did my option for "Automatic Time Zone" go?
2) How to I get my "Automatic Time Zone" option BACK? --I need to keep automatic time/date update function, but I absolutely HAVE to be able to lock the time zone to keep it from changing.
3) Why does my phone keep reverting back to 10/14/18 22:38? My phone never used to do that, is there some issue I need to fix? How do I get it to maintain time when I reboot the phone?
4) If anybody knows the reason, why in the ever-loving HELL would Google remove the "automatic time zone" option from the phone when "automatic time and date" is enabled?

Please help, I have spent hours and hours trying to figure this out. The closest I can come to is people complaining of incorrect time, and being told to turn on "automatic date and time." Which is fine, and works great, but I can no longer lock my time zone down, because the "automatic time zone" feature is GONE. I really hope you guys can help me. What am I missing?
 
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The local time and time zone being determined by location, it makes sense for the auto time zone option not to be showing when the auto date & time option is enabled -- for most people both options simply correlate with each other so there is some redundancy when there was both options showing at the same time. In your case however, you're trying to set time/location and time zone to not match up. Maybe try playing with the dual clocks feature where you can have two separate clocks with one being actual local time and the other set to correlate with the time zone you prefer:
https://www.onlinerepair.org/samsun...nge-clock-style-on-lock-screen-samsung-note-8
 
svim said:
The local time and time zone being determined by location, it makes sense for the auto time zone option not to be showing when the auto date & time option is enabled -- for most people both options simply correlate with each other so there is some redundancy when there was both options showing at the same time. In your case however, you're trying to set time/location and time zone to not match up. Maybe try playing with the dual clocks feature where you can have two separate clocks with one being actual local time and the other set to correlate with the time zone you prefer:
https://www.onlinerepair.org/samsun...nge-clock-style-on-lock-screen-samsung-note-8
Click to expand...

Problem is, I live on the border of a time zone and it will switch back and forth depending on which tower it connects to, and what side of the river the tower is on. I'm not trying to get it to display a different time zone than the one I am in, I am wanting to lock it to my time zone, the correct one, the one I am in, and not let it reset to the other time zone should the phone happen to connect to a tower on the other side of the river.

I get what you are saying, about it being the same for most people and not an issue. But I am not sure it's clear what I am trying to do. I don't want my phone to display a different time zone, I want it to stay locked to central time, and not switch between central and eastern time when it connects to different towers. See...the problem is, this is functionality that I USED to have. It used to be there. There is no longer an option for "automatic time zone" now, but there used to be one. Now it's either 100% automatic, and it displays whatever time zone the tower is in, or it's 100% manual, and I manually set my phone and select a time zone. It USED to have an option to still have automatic time/date synchronization, and ALSO allow you to turn off "automatic time zone" and lock it to a specific time zone. ...You know...for those of us unfortunate souls that live directly on the border, and whose phones switch time zones back and forth all day long. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to do away with that feature, for some reason.
 
I've seen another post like this recently. That person has a slightly older Samsung, I can't remember the carrier, and when they rebooted without being in cellular coverage their date and time reset to some time in the future (I think it was October for them too).

I just checked my Pixel (Android 9) and it has separate "auto date and time" and "auto time zone", so it's not that this has been removed from Android - that must be either Samsung or Verizon.

But even with these things off my phone does not lost the time or change date on shut down or reboot (though I've not tried turning it off overnight like this). And resetting to a date in the future is odd.
 
If this isn't sorted yet, have you tryed using a mock GPS app to set the time for you? It might force a naughty cache to clear someplace.

If this isn't sorted yet, have you tryed using a mock GPS app to set the time for you? It might force a naughty cache to clear someplace.
 
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