Issue 162 in google-authenticator: Code does not work when travelling

[google-aut...@googlecode.com]

Status: New
Owner: ----
Labels: Type-Defect Priority-Medium

New issue 162 by artimis...@gmail.com: Code does not work when travelling
http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/issues/detail?id=162

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Set my android to set date, time and timezone from network
2. Travel to another country with different time zone
3. Key in the code generated by authenticator, the code does not validate
my Google account.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I should log in my gmail accounts immediately

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
Motorola DEFY @ Android 2.3

Please provide any additional information below.

[google-aut...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Owner: klyu...@google.com

Comment #1 on issue 162 by klyu...@google.com: Code does not work when
travelling
http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/issues/detail?id=162

Thanks for the report! I have a couple of questions to troubleshoot the
issue:
1. Is the local time (as displayed by your phone in the top right corner)
correct? I'm asking because quite often the "Automatic time zone"
or "Automatic date & time" features don't work correctly.
2. What country and timezone are you currently in? (I assume that the
verification codes are still invalid.)

[google-aut...@googlecode.com]

Comment #2 on issue 162 by spuot.o...@gmail.com: Code does not work when
travelling
http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/issues/detail?id=162

i have the same issue!
just traveled to baku, azerbaijan and set the time manually to the local
time (UTC +4) on the smartphone and the computer but didn't get it to work.
it only worked after switching to automated time zone (UTC +1) on both
devices ... quite a bummer!

[google-aut...@googlecode.com]

Comment #3 on issue 162 by artimis...@gmail.com: Code does not work when
travelling
http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/issues/detail?id=162

I have checked the phone (which is not my phone):
1. Local time is correct (with automatic time and timezone checked),
timezone is also correct
2. I'm now in Hong Kong, timezone +0800, the problem happens when the user
carry his phone to UK. I didn't verify whether his timezone was correct
when he was in UK.

[google-aut...@googlecode.com]

Comment #4 on issue 162 by klyu...@google.com: Code does not work when
travelling
http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/issues/detail?id=162

Google Authenticator v2.21 (in Google Play now) adds the Time sync feature.
The feature lets the user sync the app's internal time with Google. This
should be useful for users whose Android device has the wrong time which in
turn leads to time-based verification codes generated by the app to be
wrong. See https://support.google.com/accounts?p=timesync for more
information.

[google-aut...@googlecode.com]

Comment #6 on issue 162 by twjno...@gmail.com: Code does not work when
travelling
https://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/issues/detail?id=162

Can you confirm how the time sync feature is working ?

If i have a phone from UK on which i installed Google Auth and have
automatic timezone enabled, then travel to Sweden so the time is updated
to GMT +1 and try to connect, if i hit timesync in Google Auth App
settings, is it adjusting the time based on the new time in relation to the
google server ?

And does this affect all applications ?

I am using googleauth with a VPN application. The server is in Dublin and
has NTP running to sync the time. The google auth application is setup as
Sweden but the google auth codes are always out of sync for that user but
work ok for users in the same timezone as the server.

I'm asking the user to test changing the timezone on their phone, doing a
resync in the gauth app and then setting the timezone forward again to see
if that helps but as the time sync is for all accounts, even if this works,
i think it will break the timesync for other apps the user is using google
auth for.

Ideally the timesync feature should be related to the timezone of the
specific server rather than all apps on the phone but please confirm if
this is the case and also a pointer to any info on how this working.

Thanks in advance.

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[google-aut...@googlecode.com]

Comment #7 on issue 162 by twjno...@gmail.com: Code does not work when

travelling
https://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/issues/detail?id=162

Can you confirm how the time sync feature is working ?

If i have a phone from UK on which i installed Google Auth and have
automatic timezone enabled, then travel to Sweden so the time is updated
to GMT +1 and try to connect, if i hit timesync in Google Auth App
settings, is it adjusting the time based on the new time in relation to the
google server ?

And does this affect all accounts in the googleauth app ?

I am using googleauth with a VPN application. The server is in Dublin and
has NTP running to sync the time. The google auth application is setup as
Sweden but the google auth codes are always out of sync for that user but
work ok for users in the same timezone as the server.

I'm asking the user to test changing the timezone on their phone, doing a
resync in the gauth app and then setting the timezone forward again to see

if that helps but as the time sync is for all accounts in the googleauth
app, even if this works, i think it will break the timesync for other
accounts the user is using google auth for.

Ideally the timesync feature should be related to the timezone of the

specific accuont rather than all apps on the phone but please confirm if