[Bug 1586848] Re: On Ubuntu touch it is not possible to change timezone while filesystem is mounted readonly (default)

[Pierre.Bornancin]

2 years later same bug in OTA11 with meizu mx4.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to tzdata in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1586848

Title:
  On Ubuntu touch it is not possible to change timezone while filesystem
  is mounted readonly (default)

Status in tzdata package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  On Ubuntu touch, by default, the filesystem is mounted as read only by
  default.

  However, in this state the timezone cannot be changed neither through
  the GUI, nor through dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

  Through GUI, I tried the following:
  1. Swipe from top, through Time & Date
  2. Click "Time & Date settings"
  3. Under timezone, click the currently set timezone (in my case Europe/Luxembourg UTC+2)
  4. Under current location, enter Helsinki
  5. Click on "Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland"
  6. "Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland" gets blue writing on grey background, but nothing else happens.

  Clicking "back" at top of the screen allows to exit this dialog, but
  timezone is not changed.

  In contrast, if filesystem is mounted read-write (not the default
  state), the button disappears on click, I get back to the previous
  page, and timezone is indeed changed.

  When trying to change the timezone through the command line (dpkg-
  reconfigure tzdata), I get the following error message:

  cp: cannot create regular file '/etc/localtime.dpkg-new': Read-only
  file system

  Current default time zone: 'Europe/Helsinki'
  Local time is now:      Mon May 30 00:13:08 CEST 2016.
  Universal Time is now:  Sun May 29 22:13:08 UTC 2016.

  debconf: DbDriver "config": could not write /var/cache/debconf/config
  .dat-new: Read-only file system

  
  root at alains-pocket-penguin:~# lsb_release -rd
  Description:    Ubuntu 15.04
  Release:        15.04
  root at alains-pocket-penguin:~# apt-cache policy tzdata
  tzdata:
    Installed: 2015g-0ubuntu0.15.04
    Candidate: 2015g-0ubuntu0.15.04
    Version table:
   *** 2015g-0ubuntu0.15.04 0
          500 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ vivid-updates/main armhf Packages
          500 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ vivid-security/main armhf Packages
          100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
       2015c-1 0
          500 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ vivid/main armhf Packages

  What I expected to happen:
  - Timezone should change

  What happened instead:
  - In GUI, button for new timezone is highlighted (blue writing on grey background), but dialog does not go away. Leaving it via "back" at top left of screen leaves timezone unchanged
  - In command line, I get the following error:

  cp: cannot create regular file '/etc/localtime.dpkg-new': Read-only
  file system

  Current default time zone: 'Europe/Helsinki'
  Local time is now:      Mon May 30 00:13:08 CEST 2016.
  Universal Time is now:  Sun May 29 22:13:08 UTC 2016.

  debconf: DbDriver "config": could not write /var/cache/debconf/config
  .dat-new: Read-only file system

  
  Suggested fix: 
  /var/cache/debconf should be on a filesystem which is always writeable
  /etc/localtime should be a symlink to writable/localtime (just like is the case for /etc/timezone)

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/1586848/+subscriptions