# Time on Notification emails seems to be inconsistent with alarm tables in Ignition 8.3 **URL:** \ **Category:** General Discussion\ **Tags:** perspective\ **Created:** [November 10, 2026, 9:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/time-on-notification-emails-seems-to-be-inconsistent-with-alarm-tables-in-ignition-8-3/117806 "2026-11-10T21:43:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![manctil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@manctil](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/manctil)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2026, 9:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/time-on-notification-emails-seems-to-be-inconsistent-with-alarm-tables-in-ignition-8-3/117806/1 "2026-11-10T21:43:16Z")
Ignition Version: 8.3.8 (b2026071409) Environment: - Gateway OS: Ubuntu Linux - Server timezone: UTC - Verified with: ``` timedatectl Local time: Tue 2026-11-10 20:46:31 UTC Universal time: Tue 2026-11-10 20:46:31 UTC Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000) ``` - NTP synchronized Alarm notification message: At {eventTime|yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss}, alarm "{name}" at "{displayPath}" transitioned to {eventState}. Observed behavior: Test alarm generated. Alarm Status Table shows: 11/10/2026 16:33:21 Notification email shows: At 2026-11-10 09:33:21, alarm "Alarm" at "" transitioned to Active. The email timestamp is exactly 7 hours earlier than the Alarm Status Table timestamp. Additional observations: - Perspective alarm tables appear to display Eastern time correctly. - Linux server remains configured for UTC. - We previously found a Windows jump host (jump-manctil) that had been set to Pacific time. After changing the Windows timezone to Eastern and rebooting, Perspective trends began displaying Eastern time correctly. - The Ignition gateway itself was not restarted during that change. Questions: 1. What timezone context does alarm notification {eventTime} use in Ignition 8.3.8? 2. Is there a gateway-level setting to control the timezone used when formatting alarm notification emails? 3. Why would {eventTime} be 7 hours different from the Alarm Status Table while the gateway OS is configured for UTC? 4. Is this expected behavior or a bug in 8.3.8? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2026, 10:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/time-on-notification-emails-seems-to-be-inconsistent-with-alarm-tables-in-ignition-8-3/117806/2 "2026-11-10T22:43:23Z")
What database are you using, and what column type is used for the event timestamp? ---
**Author:** ![manctil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@manctil](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/manctil)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 1:37pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/time-on-notification-emails-seems-to-be-inconsistent-with-alarm-tables-in-ignition-8-3/117806/3 "2026-11-11T13:37:39Z")
Hello Phil: I’m using Core historian and SQL DB ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/a/8/a8b10832d302b15f46b991fbfd7248bb0a94737f.png) I don’t have any DBs that I can view from the designer. ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/1/7/17a388685ebee0e7921112b94d4c9a348a3688cb.png) Thanks for replying. Mike ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 2:47pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/time-on-notification-emails-seems-to-be-inconsistent-with-alarm-tables-in-ignition-8-3/117806/4 "2026-11-11T14:47:32Z")
Just above the Schema on the right side of the Database Query Browser, there is a drop-down for picking a DB connection that can be used even when the project doesn't have a default. But you would need to look in the Gateway configuration for DB connections for Journal settings to see what **kind** of DB you are using for your alarm journal. I suspect you are using a DB whose default datetime column is not timezone-aware. ---
**Author:** ![manctil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@manctil](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/manctil)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2026, 10:59pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/time-on-notification-emails-seems-to-be-inconsistent-with-alarm-tables-in-ignition-8-3/117806/5 "2026-11-11T22:59:10Z")
Hi Phil: Thanks for the suggestion. Oh boy, I had some other issues… I dug into the Alarm Journal configuration. Initially, the PostgreSQL datasource was faulted because the database credentials were incorrect. I corrected the credentials, the datasource now shows as valid, and I assigned the Alarm Journal to that PostgreSQL datasource. However, after checking the database, there are currently no alarm journal tables present in PostgreSQL, so no alarm event data appears to have been written there yet. For additional context, the Ignition gateway is running on Ubuntu, and the server timezone is currently set to UTC (timedatectl reports Time zone: UTC). The alarm timestamp issue was present while the server was configured this way. The behavior I'm investigating is: - Alarm Table displays the event at the expected local time. - Alarm notification email generated from {eventTime|yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss} is exactly 4 hours earlier. - The offset matches UTC vs Eastern. - Changing the client/jump-host timezone had no effect on the email timestamp. Given that the PostgreSQL journal currently contains no alarm journal tables, do you still think a database timestamp type could be involved, or would you focus more on how the notification system is rendering {eventTime}? Thank you, Mike ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 3:47am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/time-on-notification-emails-seems-to-be-inconsistent-with-alarm-tables-in-ignition-8-3/117806/6 "2026-11-12T03:47:32Z")
Make sure your user for the PostgreSQL DB in Ignition has **create** access. I also recommend setting the PostgreSQL translator to use `timestamptz` for date/time data types instead of the default `timestamp`. The `timestamptz` column type is UTC microseconds, which automatically gets java timezones correct. (`java.util.Date` is UTC milliseconds, and `java.sql.Timestamp` is UTC nanoseconds.)