PHP Issue - Fatal error: date(): Timezone database is corrupt - this should *never* happen!

Matt Ogborne · 16 Mar 2016, 15:43

Howdy,

I have two Omega's with the same issue and I've googled my butt off and given up. Hence I'm looking for help or a nudge on where to report this as a bug.

Install PHP on the Omega (opkg install php5 php5-cli) and run this code in a file called "test.php":

<?php
$timenow = date("Y-m-d-H-m-s");

eg "php-cli test.php" in the terminal.

And you'll receive back this message:

Warning: date(): Invalid date.timezone value 'UTC', we selected the timezone 'UTC' for now. in /www/php/test.php on line 2
Fatal error: date(): Timezone database is corrupt - this should never happen! in /www/php/test.php on line 2

I've tried every setting I can think of date_default_timezone_set(), ini_set() to set the values & date.timezone and still the same results.

I've had to hack a quick function to read the date off the system time/date for now. But it's annoying I can't use the date() function at all

Any ideas!?

Matt

PS: running date on the command line returns:

root@Omega-AAAA:/www/php# date
Wed Mar 16 15:42:21 GMT 2016

Manuel Baldassarri · 27 Mar 2016, 21:31

Hi Matt,
you have to install timezone package first:
$ opkg install zoneinfo-europe

you can get the available list with
$ opkg list|grep zoneinfo

Than you can set up the php timezone, I prefer to add "date.timezone = 'Europe/Rome'" in /etc/php.ini in the "Data" section.

I hope this will help you
Manuel

Matt Ogborne · 29 Mar 2016, 11:08

@Manuel-Baldassarri said:

Hi Matt,
you have to install timezone package first:
$ opkg install zoneinfo-europe

you can get the available list with
$ opkg list|grep zoneinfo

Than you can set up the php timezone, I prefer to add "date.timezone = 'Europe/Rome'" in /etc/php.ini in the "Data" section.

I hope this will help you
Manuel

echo date("d-M-Y");

29-Mar-2016

Amazeballs!

Thanks for that info Manuel, that resolved it! Thank you

Matt

Matt Ogborne · 29 Mar 2016, 11:31

Howdy Manuel,

https://github.com/moggiex/wiki/blob/patch-11/Tutorials/PHP-Date-Time-Functions.md

I've whipped together a quick tutorial on this as I could not find the answer to this anywhere on the interwebs at all & had given up.

Thanks again!

Matt

Jonathan Jefferies · 31 Mar 2020, 19:32

Thanks! I just experienced this problem. I was about to post a new topic, but your solution saved me. I did opkg install zoneinfo-europe.

It was weird. My code was working fine, then suddenly stopped. I wonder if it was to do with the timezone change to BST here in the UK at the weekend?