Claim codes work sometimes, other times they don't! about android-channel

[ewheeler]

Try checking if both devices (server and android) have their clocks set correctly. The codes are time-based, so if the clocks are too far apart the codes will not match properly.

[knightsamar]

So, does this also mean that both should be in the same time zone ?

[nicpottier]

The timestamps are UTC, so no, they do not need to be in the same timezone, but they do both need to be correct.

To debug this I would add some prints to:
https://github.com/rapidpro/rapidpro/blob/master/temba/channels/views.py#L216

That's the view that handles syncs and such.

[irak2010]

The problem is you got a difference of time (between your android phone and your computer) > to 15 min. So after i noticed i had a difference of 4 hours, i changed the code to accept the difference of 5 hours.
The code to change is this one https://github.com/rapidpro/rapidpro/blob/master/temba/channels/views.py#L216 (line 239)
original code:
check that the request isn't too old (15 mins)
now = time.time()
if abs(now - int(request_time)) > 60 * 15:
return HttpResponse(status=401, content='{ "error_id": 3, "error": "Old Request", "cmds":[] }')

changed code:
now = time.time()
if abs(now - int(request_time)) > 60 * 300:
print "DIFF:%s" % (now - int(request_time))
print "NOW: %s" % datetime.fromtimestamp(int(now)).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
print "REQUEST TIME %s" % datetime.fromtimestamp(int(request_time)).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
print "DIFFERENT TIME (old request)"
return HttpResponse(status=401, content='{ "error_id": 3, "error": "Old Request", "cmds":[] }')

[nicpottier]

This is by design to prevent replay attacks. There's no valid scenario where your phone should be more than 15 minutes off from your server, it will cause headaches down the line.