glanceapp/glance · error

invalid timezone '%s': %v

Error message

invalid timezone '%s': %v

What it means

Returned by the clock widget's Initialize when time.LoadLocation rejects one of the configured timezone strings. LoadLocation resolves names against the IANA Time Zone database and fails on misspelled names, non-IANA names, or when no tz database is available in the binary/container.

Source

Thrown at internal/glance/widget-clock.go:37

	} `yaml:"timezones"`
}

func (widget *clockWidget) initialize() error {
	widget.withTitle("Clock").withError(nil)

	if widget.HourFormat == "" {
		widget.HourFormat = "24h"
	} else if widget.HourFormat != "12h" && widget.HourFormat != "24h" {
		return errors.New("hour-format must be either 12h or 24h")
	}

	for t := range widget.Timezones {
		if widget.Timezones[t].Timezone == "" {
			return errors.New("missing timezone value")
		}

		if _, err := time.LoadLocation(widget.Timezones[t].Timezone); err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("invalid timezone '%s': %v", widget.Timezones[t].Timezone, err)
		}
	}

	widget.cachedHTML = widget.renderTemplate(widget, clockWidgetTemplate)

	return nil
}

func (widget *clockWidget) Render() template.HTML {
	return widget.cachedHTML
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 91324e8de7)

Solutions

1. Use full IANA names: America/New_York, Europe/Berlin, Asia/Kolkata, UTC.
2. If running in a minimal container, install tzdata (apk add tzdata / apt-get install tzdata) or blank-import time/tzdata.
3. Validate each entry with `go run` one-liner time.LoadLocation or a site like zoneinfo before adding to config.
4. Remember hour-format must also be 12h or 24h — a bad value raises a separate error in the same function.

Example fix

# before
timezones:
  - timezone: PST

# after
timezones:
  - timezone: America/Los_Angeles

# main.go (container without zoneinfo)
import _ "time/tzdata"

func validTimezones(ts []clockTimezone) error {
    for _, t := range ts {
        if t.Timezone == "" {
            return errors.New("missing timezone value")
        }
        if _, err := time.LoadLocation(t.Timezone); err != nil {
            return fmt.Errorf("invalid timezone %q: use IANA names like Europe/Berlin", t.Timezone)
        }
    }
    return nil
}

if _, err := time.LoadLocation(tz); err != nil {
    slog.Warn("falling back to UTC", "timezone", tz, "error", err)
    tz = "UTC"
}

When it happens

Trigger: timezones: [{timezone: "EST"}] (deprecated abbreviation, not a valid IANA name), "New_York" without the region prefix, "GMT+2" style, or a valid name like "Europe/Berlin" inside a scratch/distroless Docker image lacking /usr/share/zoneinfo.

Common situations: Users copy abbreviations (PST, CEST) instead of IANA names; glance deployed in a minimal container without tzdata; typo in YAML; Alpine-based image without the tzdata package.

Related errors

• loading location: %v
• invalid first day of week
• invalid body type, must be either 'json' or 'string'
• URL is required
• nested groups are not supported

AI-assisted analysis of glanceapp/glance@91324e8de7 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ac7addd3cbef9e52. Report an issue: GitHub.