node-cron timezone working only when time-zone is same as machines time zone

Question

EDIT: - this has been resolved in "node-cron" version > "3.0"

I have the following code. "node-cron": "^2.0.3"

cron.schedule('46 00 * * *',() => {
   //code to be executed
  console.log("Tik")
  },{
    scheduled: true,
    timezone: "America/New_York"
  });

As per my understanding, this should fire at 12:46 am America/New_York time irrespective of my machine timezone. But it doesn't work till I match the timezone with hosting machine time e.g if my machine time zone is Europe/London and I use timezone: "Europe/London" the cron will work at the exact time.

I want to schedule cron for the specific timezone. Since I am dealing with few timezones so running cron every half hour and doing checks dosent look effecient.

In short, Anyone if you wanted to stick with `node-cron` then you might need to use `version >3.0`, Check this : https://github.com/node-cron/node-cron/issues/157 or as mentioned by Terry better go with `cron` — whoami - fakeFaceTrueSoul, Apr 05 '21 at 15:39

Terry Lennox · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-05T15:24:13.630

8

Ok, so I am slightly shocked at the reasons behind this error. node-cron uses tz-offset to calculate timezone offsets... but this module does not account for Daylight Saving Time! So I believe this library is fundamentally flawed, since a lot of timezones use DST (including, of course America/New_York. Issues have been raised for this: https://github.com/node-cron/tz-offset/issues/8.

This means your cron job will be run at 01:46, or exactly one hour late. Now it will run at the right time for about half the year, this almost makes this issue worse.

I would suggest trying the cron module, the code will be very similar, but will deal with timezones properly, since it uses luxon to calculate UTC offsets.

const CronJob = require('cron').CronJob;
const job = new CronJob('46 00 * * *', () => {
    console.log('Tik');
}, null, true, 'America/New_York');
job.start();

Update: This looks likes it is now fixed in node-cron.

edited Apr 05 '21 at 15:24

answered Sep 07 '20 at 08:14

Terry Lennox

29,471
5
28
40

1

Thanks for pointing towards the right direction will replace the library and accept the answer based on output. – amar Sep 07 '20 at 08:18
1

For a buggy one, node-cron is getting too much attention from google crawlers. – amar Sep 07 '20 at 08:40
1

Yes, I'm amazed this hasn't been fixed, this is a fundamental problem with node-cron. The worst thing, is that if this was winter, the output would be correct, then would fire at the wrong time from March onwards. – Terry Lennox Sep 07 '20 at 08:44
1

Thank God I did it now. Or else bugs would have gone in production like a time bomb. – amar Sep 07 '20 at 08:47
1

Exactly, those are the worst type of bugs. – Terry Lennox Sep 07 '20 at 08:48
2

Thanks for the info but it seems to have a fix now! Check this https://github.com/node-cron/node-cron/issues/157 – whoami - fakeFaceTrueSoul Apr 05 '21 at 15:19
2

Excellent, I'll update the answer to indicate that. – Terry Lennox Apr 05 '21 at 15:21
1

I don't think node-cron fixed it yet. I am still facing the same issue. Found a workaround using the dayjs package. – VIVEK Apr 11 '23 at 18:41

node-cron timezone working only when time-zone is same as machines time zone

1 Answers1