Question

This code has been working for a long time now but has broken now when I try to pass DateTime.Now as the outageEndDate parameter:

public Outage(DateTime outageStartDate, DateTime outageEndDate, Dictionary<string, string> weeklyHours, string province, string localProvince)
    {
        this.outageStartDate = outageStartDate;
        this.outageEndDate = outageEndDate;
        this.weeklyHours = weeklyHours;
        this.province = province;
        localTime = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById(timeZones[localProvince]);

        if (outageStartDate < outageEndDate)
        {
            TimeZoneInfo remoteTime = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById(timeZones[province]);
            outageStartDate = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(outageStartDate, localTime, remoteTime);
            outageEndDate = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(outageEndDate, localTime, remoteTime);

The error message I am getting on the last line is that the Kind property is not set correctly on the DateTime parameter (outageEndDate). I’ve Googled and checked SO for examples but I don’t really understand the error message.

Any advice is appreciated.

Regards.

EDIT – The exact error message is:

The conversion could not be completed because the supplied DateTime did not have the Kind
property set correctly.  For example, when the Kind property is DateTimeKind.Local, the source
time zone must be TimeZoneInfo.Local.  Parameter name: sourceTimeZone

EDIT: outageEndDate.Kind = Utc

Answer 1

Thanks for clarifying your question.

If the DateTime instance Kind is Local, then TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime will expect the second parameter to be the local timezone of your computer.

If DateTime instance Kind is Utc, then TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime will expect the second parameter to be the Utc timezone.

You need to convert outageEndDate to the right timezone first, just in case the localProvice timezone doesn’t match the timezone on your computer.

outageEndDate = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(outageEndDate, localTime);