Timezone Information Missing in pytz?

Konstantin Greger picture Konstantin Greger · Feb 12, 2014 · Viewed 22.1k times · Source

I'm having a very weird problem with Python's pytz: it seems to have an incomplete catalog of timezones on my system (MacOS X 10.8.5, system Python 2.7.5).

>>> from pytz import timezone
>>> import pytz

>>> utc = pytz.utc
>>> utc.zone
'UTC'

>>> eastern = timezone('US/Eastern')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "pytz/__init__.pyc", line 182, in timezone

pytz.exceptions.UnknownTimeZoneError: 'US/Eastern'

So the timezone 'US/Eastern' can't be found. Accordingly I tried to have a look at the catalog of timezones that pytz offers:

>>> from pytz import all_timezones
>>> for tz in pytz.all_timezones:
...     print tz
... 
Africa/Abidjan
Africa/Accra
Africa/Addis_Ababa
Africa/Algiers
Africa/Asmara
Africa/Asmera
Africa/Bamako
Africa/Bangui
Africa/Banjul
Africa/Bissau
Africa/Blantyre
Africa/Brazzaville
Africa/Bujumbura
Africa/Cairo
Africa/Casablanca
Africa/Ceuta
Africa/Conakry
Africa/Dakar
Africa/Dar_es_Salaam
Africa/Djibouti
Africa/Douala
Africa/El_Aaiun
Africa/Freetown
Africa/Gaborone
Africa/Harare
Africa/Johannesburg
Africa/Juba
Africa/Kampala
Africa/Khartoum
Africa/Kigali
Africa/Kinshasa
Africa/Lagos
Africa/Libreville
Africa/Lome
Africa/Luanda
Africa/Lubumbashi
Africa/Lusaka
Africa/Malabo
Africa/Maputo
Africa/Maseru
Africa/Mbabane
Africa/Mogadishu
Africa/Monrovia
Africa/Nairobi
Africa/Ndjamena
Africa/Niamey
Africa/Nouakchott
Africa/Ouagadougou
Africa/Porto-Novo
Africa/Sao_Tome
Africa/Timbuktu
Africa/Tripoli
Africa/Tunis
Africa/Windhoek
America/Adak
America/Anchorage
America/Anguilla
America/Antigua
America/Araguaina
America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires
America/Argentina/Catamarca
America/Argentina/ComodRivadavia
America/Argentina/Cordoba
America/Argentina/Jujuy
America/Argentina/La_Rioja
America/Argentina/Mendoza
America/Argentina/Rio_Gallegos
America/Argentina/Salta
America/Argentina/San_Juan
America/Argentina/San_Luis
America/Argentina/Tucuman
America/Argentina/Ushuaia
America/Aruba
America/Asuncion
America/Atikokan
America/Atka
America/Bahia
America/Bahia_Banderas
America/Barbados
America/Belem
America/Belize
America/Blanc-Sablon
America/Boa_Vista
America/Bogota
America/Boise
America/Buenos_Aires
America/Cambridge_Bay
America/Campo_Grande
America/Cancun
America/Caracas
America/Catamarca
America/Cayenne
America/Cayman
America/Chicago
America/Chihuahua
America/Coral_Harbour
America/Cordoba
America/Costa_Rica
America/Creston
America/Cuiaba
America/Curacao
America/Danmarkshavn
America/Dawson
America/Dawson_Creek
America/Denver
America/Detroit
America/Dominica
America/Edmonton
America/Eirunepe
America/El_Salvador
America/Ensenada
America/Fort_Wayne
America/Fortaleza
America/Glace_Bay
America/Godthab
America/Goose_Bay
America/Grand_Turk
America/Grenada
America/Guadeloupe
America/Guatemala
America/Guayaquil
America/Guyana
America/Halifax
America/Havana
America/Hermosillo
America/Indiana/Indianapolis
America/Indiana/Knox
America/Indiana/Marengo
America/Indiana/Petersburg
America/Indiana/Tell_City
America/Indiana/Vevay
America/Indiana/Vincennes
America/Indiana/Winamac
America/Indianapolis
America/Inuvik
America/Iqaluit
America/Jamaica
America/Jujuy
America/Juneau
America/Kentucky/Louisville
America/Kentucky/Monticello
America/Knox_IN
America/Kralendijk
America/La_Paz
America/Lima
America/Los_Angeles

So as you can see, it ends rather prematurely and many many timezones are missing. I tried to overcome this by updating the Olson database pytz uses internally:

$ sudo pip install -U pytz

But the problem persists...

Any ideas what might be going wrong here? Am I missing something?

Answer

Hieu picture Hieu · Jul 13, 2018

I had a similar exception UnknownTimeZoneError: Can not find any timezone configuration when i tried to run my app inside a docker container with the latest ubuntu images. It turned out that tzdata was missing. Installing tzdata package fixed it:

apt-get install -y tzdata

# Maybe you will need to reconfigure the timezone as well:
ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/UTC /etc/localtime
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata

(Use sudo if you have to)