TimeZone Bias Issue

Kodi 22 Nightly – "Unable to obtain time zone bias!" on LibreELEC (musl platform)

Summary
=======
Kodi 22 nightly on LibreELEC repeatedly logs:
Unable to obtain time zone bias!
This does not occur on Kodi 22 nightly under Windows using the same addons and configuration.
The message appears when addons perform timezone conversions using Arrow (e.g., utc.to('local')).

Environment
===========
- LibreELEC-AMLGX.aarch64-13.0-nightly-20260208-1a819bf-odroid-n2.img
- Kodi 22 (Alpha nightly)
- Hardware: Odroid N2
- Timezone: Europe/Warsaw
- tzdata installed (zoneinfo present)
Comparison system:
-----------------
- Windows 10
- Kodi 22 nightly
- Same addons
- No timezone bias errors
Additional Comparison:
---------------------
Kodi 21 (Nexus) on LibreELEC -> No timezone bias errors
Kodi 21 on CoreELEC -> No timezone bias errors
Kodi 22 nightly on LibreELEC -> Error appears
Kodi 22 nightly on CoreELEC -> Error appears
Kodi 22 nightly on Windows -> No error
This suggests the issue may be a Kodi 22 regression affecting musl-based platforms.

Log Example
===========
2026-02-20 17:08:43.526 T:973 error <general>: Unable to obtain time zone bias!
The message repeats whenever timezone conversion to local time is performed.

Timezone Configuration Verification
===================================
Timezone configuration on LibreELEC appears correct:
- /etc/localtime -> /var/run/localtime
- /var/run/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Warsaw
- /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Warsaw exists and is valid
There is no /etc/timezone file (which is normal on many minimal systems).
Therefore, tzdata and localtime symlinks appear properly configured.

Observations
============
- The issue is reproducible on LibreELEC nightly.
- The same Kodi nightly build on Windows does not produce the error.
- CoreELEC (also musl-based) exhibits the same behavior.
- This suggests the issue may be platform-related rather than addon-related.
- LibreELEC uses musl libc, whereas Windows and typical Linux desktop systems use different time APIs (or glibc).

Hypothesis
==========
The issue may be related to how Kodi 22 nightly retrieves timezone bias information on musl-based systems.
Timezone files are correctly configured, so the problem may be in:
- Kodi’s timezone bias retrieval logic on musl
- Interaction between Kodi and musl time functions
- A regression introduced in Kodi 22 nightly
This does not appear to be caused by addon logic, as the same code works correctly on Windows.

Expected Behavior
=================
Kodi should obtain timezone bias information correctly on LibreELEC and not log "Unable to obtain time zone bias!" during normal timezone conversions.

If further debugging information is required (strace, additional logs, testing specific builds), I’m happy to provide it.

Quote from chewitt

I don't see anything abnormal logged; using an AMLGX image on an N2 board, with the timezone configured for Asia/Dubai or with the timezone changed to Europe/Warsaw:

Code

N2:~ # connmanctl clock
  Time = 1771724187
  TimeUpdates = auto
  Timezone = Asia/Dubai
  TimezoneUpdates = auto
  Timeservers = [  ]
  TimeserverSynced = True

Code

N2:~ # grep -i bias /storage/.kodi/temp/kodi.log
2026-02-22 05:35:27.952 T:808      info <general>: Time zone bias changed from 0 mins to -240 mins (due to time zone or DST change).

If there was a general issue with timezone configuration and ntp updates (ConnMan) there'd be a ton of forum posts on the topic; and there are a decent number of people using LE13/K22 nightlies and this is the only report. This normally points towards an issue being network/environmental related and not something in the LE image.

Have you tried rebooting your internet router?

Hi,

First of all thank for your response.

The issue is now resolved. I commented it here: https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/coreelec-22-…e-bias/58212/11