What does the timezone setting do

ListenBrainz
1

Hello,

I realize that for a very long time I have beein using a wrong timezone in the settings and I have some questions:

  1. What does the timezone setting do?
    a) Does it change the timestamp at which the listens are saved? Like those fields:
"inserted_at": 1737393739,
 "listened_at": 1737393684,

b) Or does it add a new field with the timezone?

  1. Also what happens if I change the timezone?
    a) Does it retroactively change the timezones of all the listens and they appear timezone-corrected?
    b) Or does it work only for future listens (and the only way to fix it is by exporting old data, manipulating them and importing them back)?

  2. What about the spotidy listens? I have spotify linked. Does it record the listens timezone-corrected with me setting a timezone?

All this happened because I wanted to add my extended spotify history with a script I found and I saw some differences in the timestamps on overlapping songs.

PS. I just tried to change the timezone and neither previous listens nor new listens seem to have any change in they way they are recorded

2

Hi!

Right now the timezone is only used to determine when to generate playlists for the user, so that we generate them at midnight in the user’s timezone.

Eventually we will use the timezone information for inclusion in listens.

2 Likes
3

if I’m not mistaken, this is a Unix timestamp, which isn’t affected by timezones, as it’s the number of seconds since midnight on January 1st 1970 UTC

1 Like
4

Famous last words

Technically yes, but that doesn’t stop people from using timezoned timestamps, which completly break during daylight savings

5

The time change, especially from 3 to 2 in the morning, is nice when you’re on a train.

Then you have to stand in the forest for 1 hour. :wink: