Time zones for tag exports and imports

Ignition
1

How are time zones handled with regard to tag imports and exports?

In the gateway I’m working with, I have a UDT with a memory tag member of Document datatype. It shows the value of 5:47 pm for time in one of the fields.

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I exported the tags by clicking the “Export Tags” button. In the tags.json file, the value appears as 12:47 pm.

After I reimport the tags without making any modifications, the value changes to 12:47 pm

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I would have thought that export followed by import should not change any tag values.

I assume this is some issue with time zone handling. My time zone is UTC-5, so it would appear that at times ignition is using my local time zone and at other times UTC.

If anyone knows the rules of how time zones are handled please let me know.

2

What’s the code that is writing the value of that timestamp to the document tag?

Can you paste in here the json export of the document tag?

1 Like
3

It’s just text in the document tag

4

Without seeing it, I'm blind. I need to see the format of the timestamp. Is it stored as the literal string “Nov 5, 2025 10:35:33 PM”, as a timestamp object, as a long Unix format, etc