Date/Time error warning

General PHP Help
#1

I recently had a site hacked. After getting it back up and running I started to receive this message when testing the “Contact” page. This is an older site which was built for me and I know nothing about .php but am able to open the below referenced pages and can add/change code if anyone can make suggestions. First is the warning message and below that is the code on the lines (+) refereed to in those warnings. Sorry, not able to post a link due to forum rules.

Thanks for any help!

Warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system’s timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected ‘America/Los_Angeles’ for ‘PDT/-7.0/DST’ instead in /home/westli6/public_html/class.phpmailer.php on line 1925

Warning: date() [function.date]: It is not safe to rely on the system’s timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected ‘America/Los_Angeles’ for ‘PDT/-7.0/DST’ instead in /home/westli6/public_html/class.phpmailer.php on line 1929 Could not instantiate mail function.

////////////////////////////////////

public static function RFCDate() {
$tz = date(‘Z’);
$tzs = ($tz < 0) ? ‘-’ : ‘+’;
$tz = abs($tz);
$tz = (int)($tz/3600)*100 + ($tz%3600)/60;
$result = sprintf("%s %s%04d", date(‘D, j M Y H:i:s’), $tzs, $tz);

return $result;

}

#2

It says what you need to do, either update php.ini (and reload the web server) - or add your wanted timezone using ini_set

#3

Thanks for the quick reply Jim

Sorry but this is all over my head. Copy & paste I can handle and re-uploading the file, not a problem. This hack has made a mess of things but not sure at this point if this was part of that.

#4

Well, you can either set it in your php.ini file to be permanent throughout your site, or you can add one line at the
top of each page loosely like this:

date_default_timezone_set(‘America/Los_Angeles’);

You need to set the parm to point at your area. Not all cities have their own time zone. For instance, in my area
in New England, US, I use Boston or New York for my time zone. There is a list on PHP.net if you need it.

#5

Thank you ErnieAlex. Sorry for being un-educated on all of this!

Sounds like the simplest way as you describe it would be to change the php.ini file. So, can you perhaps give me the correct line/s of code to insert into that file or would it be the same as the code you supplied for “each page”? Also, what line would I insert it into?

If that’s the case and I’m in Utah I assume I would substitute in:

date_default_timezone_set(‘America/Denver’) ?

#6

There should be a date.timezone line in your php.ini, it might be commented out though (line starting with a semicolon)

This is the correct format

[php]date.timezone = “America/Denver”[/php]

Note that if you want to make a script that work for different time zones (ie users around the world) you usually want to use UTC in the application.

[hr]

The location of your php.ini file depends on your server config. You should be able to find it using

[php]<?php

phpinfo();[/php]

[hr]

After updating the ini file you will have to reload Apache.

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If you’re on shared hosting your easiest way to solve this is to just ask the customer support there

Normally they allow you to override php.ini, either with your own file or using a .htaccess file.

ie something like

[php]php_value date.timezone ‘Region/Zone’[/php]

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