Clock glitch sends Israelis into disarray

Many Israelis found their morning routine slightly askew Sunday after a computer glitch caused their clocks to be set back an hour overnight, a month before the end of daylight savings time in Israel.

The problem was prevalent in older smartphones, tablets and some computers. Due to a bug, these devices, which sync their internal clock to a master via cellular network or the Internet, were registered to turn the clock back on September 28.

This would have been the end of daylight savings time in Israel had the Knesset not passed legislation last year extending the period.

Daylight savings is due to end this year on October 26, and last year, the first year the extension was implemented, thousands of users were affected by a similar glitch which set their clocks back prematurely.

Then, as now, cellphone companies say they sent out SMS messages informing customers of the glitch, in some cases days beforehand. However, a number of users of the Orange cell provider said they did not get any warning.

The problem was acute in the Palestinian Authority as well, where the government also pushed back the start of winter time, according to the Ma’an news agency.

Last November, the Knesset passed legislation extending daylight savings time until the end of October. Before that, standard time would begin the Saturday night before Yom Kippur, so that the day’s fast, which is pegged to nightfall, would end an hour earlier.

Because the Hebrew calendar is lunar, Yom Kippur can fall between mid-September and mid-October, which used to mean that Israelis returned to standard time as much as a month and a half before most other countries, where daylight savings time ends at the end of October or early November.