LightScene function problems and shadow update

I need to relight my scene to help reflect different times of the day. This works by hand in the mission editor where I can change the elevation and ambience for the sun object then choose Relight scene from the menu.

To make this user friendly I built a dialog with presets that allows me to have the sun move. The sun moves just fine but when I call
lightScene("",forceAlways);
the changes are not reflected in the engine. The console shows that it's relighting the scene and writing a new ml file but it doesn't update the shadows.

This is the same function called by the menu in the mission editor but it doesn't work for me. What am I doing wrong? Is there something I need to do to reflect the change?

Try it for yourself in the console. Find the sun object and set the elevation to a new value and call. For example
1350.elevation=35;
lightScene("",forceAlways);

It will do the work but not show the changes.

Heres the other odd thing. If you set the values with the console then go to the mission editor and choose relight scene it won't work. But if you change the elevation of the sun but make it the same value then hit apply and then relight the scene it works. So what is the apply button doing that makes it work? I've looked at the C++ code but I didn't notice anything special.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.