Fatal Error: timezone database is corrupt after PHP upgrade

  • larry.bradley

    (@larrybradley)


    1 year, 9 months ago

    Test site using Ubuntu 20.04 WordPress 6.6.1 PHP Version 8.3

    Two days ago there was an upgrade to PHP to version 8.3.11-1. Now when I try to access the site, I get the dreaded “Fatal Error: timezone database is corrupt” error. This occurred right after the PHP updates were installed. Other non-wordpress parts of the site using PHP work fine, and they are using the PHP datetime class and setting the timezone.

    I am a programmer, and so I have no problem messing about with PHP code, and the system. There are suggestions that this can be caused by the timezone database directories and files having the wrong privileges, but this isn’t the case as far as I can tell. /usr/share/zoneinfo directories and files are owned by root, and everyone has read access.

    Fortunately this isn’t the production site, so it isn’t urgent, but I would like to get it solved.

    Any suggestions?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    1 year, 9 months ago

    Try manually resetting your plugins (no Dashboard access required). If that resolves the issue, reactivate each one individually until you find the cause.

    If that does not resolve the issue, access your server via SFTP or FTP, or a file manager in your hosting account’s control panel (consult your hosting provider’s documentation for specifics on these), navigate to /wp-content/themes/ and rename the directory of your currently active theme. Hopefully, this will force the default theme to activate and rule out a theme-specific issue (theme functions can interfere like plugins).

    Thread Starter larry.bradley

    (@larrybradley)

    1 year, 9 months ago

    Neither of these worked. I have full access … it is on my personal machine, so I can try anything.

    Thread Starter larry.bradley

    (@larrybradley)

    1 year, 9 months ago

    Found the problem. It turns out that on my development machine, I was using the PHP-supplied tzdata time zone database, which must have got messed up during the update. By installing and updated on, all is well.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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