My local server’s timezone is set to UTC-8 – https://www.screencast.com/t/1qqid95lR3v

I need to create epoch time for UTC so I’m trying to use the following function:

#DateDiff(“s”, “January 1 1970 00:00:00”, dateconvert(“local2utc”, now()))#

The dateconvert function does not compute the correct time using any combination.

Here is example code:

<cfset utcTime = dateconvert("local2utc", now())>
<cfoutput>
 now: #now()#
 <br>local2utc: #utcTime#
 <br>epoch (now){currentTime:#DateDiff("s", "January 1 1970 00:00:00", now())#}
 <br/>epoch (local2utc){currentTime:#DateDiff("s", "January 1 1970 00:00:00", dateconvert("local2utc", now()))#}
 <br>epoch (utcTimeVar){currentTime:#DateDiff("s", "January 1 1970 00:00:00", utcTime)#}
</cfoutput>

Here is that code’s output:

now: {ts '2019-04-10 10:54:44'} 
local2utc: {ts '2019-04-10 17:54:44'} 
epoch (now){currentTime:1554890084} 
epoch (local2utc){currentTime:1554890084} 
epoch (utcTimeVar){currentTime:1554890084}

Notice that all 3 epoch times are identical.  The dateconvert value is not being taken into account, even with the utcTimeVar, which is baffling.

See it live here: http://l.thcguard.com/gettimetest.cfm

Please give me guidance!