Tech Forum

I am the stake clerk and I have problems with MLS on a computer in one ward. Were from I don't know what date of the start of the year this ward has had a date in the future. Right now it is the 1st of November but they are at 29 of November in the MLS system so if you want to log on you have to change the date to 29 of Nov. Also I have tried when logged is as Nov 29 and than make a backup and than restore with date Nov. 1st but it still doesn't fix it at all. I have tried everything to make this MLS work on the right date but nothing works. If anyone has any information please let me know at email: millergr@me.com please I will be grateful for your help and action.

You may want to check Changing the system date in the Wiki.

The simplest approach is to keep changing the date to "just far enough in the future to get it to run" until "real time" catches up to "MLS Time".

I have done and read that part already but thats the problem is they have also a year like this, so if I restore also a year back if will mess up everything because of the dap's and members list and all. I don't want that.

RussellHltn wrote:You may want to check Changing the system date in the Wiki.

The simplest approach is to keep changing the date to "just far enough in the future to get it to run" until "real time" catches up to "MLS Time".

RussellHltn wrote:The simplest approach is to keep changing the date to "just far enough in the future to get it to run" until "real time" catches up to "MLS Time".

I wonder how well that approach works when you're off by 4 full weeks. That means you would be transmitting financial batches on dates that could create problems. Yes, you can back date a batch, but with the new philosophy of MLS 3.4.1 where the posting date is the key, I'd be concerned that it could create additional problems. But then again, I guess they have been operating this way for many months. So perhaps it's not an insurmountable problem.

Going back to a backup when the date was correct isn't practical at this point, since it has been going on for a year.

If they diligently work on setting the time just far enough in the future, they should be able to get back on track by the first week of December. Perhaps that will be good enough. They definitely need to be back on before the end of the year, or they will have huge problems with being forced into 2012 before they have finished entering everything for 2011, at which point there will be no going back.

And finally, once they are back on track, you may want to look at that wiki article to see how you can disable date changes on the computer to lessen the chance of this happening again.

millergr wrote:I have done and read that part already but thats the problem is they have also a year like this,

I don't understand what you are saying. Are they 13 months ahead? From the initial post they seem to be about a month ahead. If that's the case, you only need to restore a backup from 30 days ago, or keep messing with the clock for the next 4-5 weeks.

aebrown wrote:Going back to a backup when the date was correct isn't practical at this point, since it has been going on for a year.

Wouldn't they just need one from 30 days ago? I don't think it has to be from a time when the system clock was correct, just a time when the computer thought that "now" was a period in time before today's date.

RussellHltn wrote:Wouldn't they just need one from 30 days ago? I don't think it has to be from a time when the system clock was correct, just a time when the computer thought that "now" was a period in time before today's date.

You're right that the critical point is not how long the clock has been off, but how far it is off. But although it's true that a backup from 30 days ago would work, such a backup would cause them to lose 30 days of work. And in this particular case, 30 days ago was before the MLS 3.4.1 upgrade and associated setup file processing. I'm personally not brave enough to venture into unknown territory of restoring a backup prior to the generation of the setup file and hoping it will get regenerated and reprocessed properly.

A much safer approach is your suggestion to move the clock back just before each MLS use, setting the clock to a time just after the end of the previous MLS session. That does have the downside of printing bogus dates on reports (including the tithing settlement reports), but those are mostly just dates in the footer that most people ignore anyway, so it shouldn't be too big of a problem.

The other possibility I see is to contact Local Unit Support and see if they can change the MLS database to think it has the current date.

RussellHltn wrote:Wouldn't they just need one from 30 days ago? I don't think it has to be from a time when the system clock was correct, just a time when the computer thought that "now" was a period in time before today's date.

No the problem is the following I got the calling to stake clerk and the stake clerk before me knew about it but never did nothing they are ahead for weeks but to restore to a file backup. I would have to goto may of 2010 thats when they said the problem started so. I just cant go back a month and reload that one because it says the same thing on restore put the date and so on.

aebrown wrote:You're right that the critical point is not how long the clock has been off, but how far it is off. But although it's true that a backup from 30 days ago would work, such a backup would cause them to lose 30 days of work. And in this particular case, 30 days ago was before the MLS 3.4.1 upgrade and associated setup file processing. I'm personally not brave enough to venture into unknown territory of restoring a backup prior to the generation of the setup file and hoping it will get regenerated and reprocessed properly.

A much safer approach is your suggestion to move the clock back just before each MLS use, setting the clock to a time just after the end of the previous MLS session. That does have the downside of printing bogus dates on reports (including the tithing settlement reports), but those are mostly just dates in the footer that most people ignore anyway, so it shouldn't be too big of a problem.

The other possibility I see is to contact Local Unit Support and see if they can change the MLS database to think it has the current date.

Thats another problem because if you switch the clock back before going into mls it doesnt open and if I change it when in mls and make a backup it saves as the day I want it to but after I go out and restore again to that file it say exit and restart mls and than the date is asked to goto the 29 of Nov again. It is crazy I know. I have been hitting my head at the pc screen all day long.

I also have contacted local unit and they dont even know what to do!

millergr wrote:Thats another problem because if you switch the clock back before going into mls it doesnt open and if I change it when in mls and make a backup it saves as the day I want it to but after I go out and restore again to that file it say exit and restart mls and than the date is asked to goto the 29 of Nov again. It is crazy I know. I have been hitting my head at the pc screen all day long.

I also have contacted local unit and they dont even know what to do!

I guess I didn't explain this clearly. You don't set the clock back all at once. Instead, you do something like the following:

1. Login to MLS on Nov 1, but the system clock says Nov 29. You go ahead and do your work with the clock saying Nov 29, and you finish your work at 5:00pm. You make a note of this.
2. The next time you want to login is Nov 6. The system clock says Dec 4. But before you login to MLS, you set your system clock to Nov 29 at 6:00pm. Go ahead and login. MLS will let you in just fine because Nov 29 at 6:00pm is after Nov 29 at 5:00pm (the last time MLS saved the database). You finish your work when the system clock says 8:00pm. Make a note of this.
3. The next time you come to work on MLS, set the system clock to 9:00pm on Nov 29 before you login to MLS.

Keep repeating this process until (probably the first week in December) you reach a point where the real time is later than the system time when the last MLS save was done. At that point, set your system clock to the correct time. Life will be good again!