Windows install steps do not appear to work for 20.2.0-alpha.2

[rmloveland]

Following the instructions to Install CockroachDB on Windows on a Windows laptop:

1. Download the alpha.2 binary currently linked above
2. Download zoneinfo.zip
3. Set the ZONEINFO env var on Windows (I did this at the "user" level and later tried at the "system" level)
4. CockroachDB does not see the zip file pointed to by ZONEINFO even though I have confirmed (via PowerShell commands below) that (a) the file exists, and (b) it is pointed to by the ZONEINFO variable

(The Powershell session pasted below also checks my specific Windows 10 version, since the laptop just updated recently. I have no idea if that matters here or not.)

 Get-ChildItem Env: | grep.exe 'ZONE'
ZONEINFO                       C:\Users\rml\Programs\cockroachdb-spatial-win32\zoneinfo\zoneinfo.zip
PS C:\Users\rml\Programs\cockroachdb-win32> Test-Path -Path C:\Users\rml\Programs\cockroachdb-spatial-win32\zoneinfo\zoneinfo.zip
True
PS C:\Users\rml\Programs\cockroachdb-win32> .\cockroach.exe demo
E200821 16:15:21.362662 1 cli/start.go:1116  timeutil.LoadLocation: timezone data cannot be found
ERROR: unable to load named timezones
HINT: See: https://go.crdb.dev/issue/36864
--
Check that the time zone database is installed on your system, or
set the ZONEINFO environment variable to a Go time zone .zip archive.
Failed running "demo"
PS C:\Users\rml\Programs\cockroachdb-win32> [System.Environment]::OSVersion.Version

Major  Minor  Build  Revision
-----  -----  -----  --------
10     0      19041  0

See also:

• https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/issues/36864

Jira issue: CRDB-6305

[otan]

cc @knz -- should there be a docs FAQ page in resolving these issues?

(if testing geospatial, i think you can set COCKROACH_INCONSISTENT_TIME_ZONES=true as an environment variable temporarily).

[knz]

cc @knz -- should there be a docs FAQ page in resolving these issues?

This is a regression.

(if testing geospatial, i think you can set COCKROACH_INCONSISTENT_TIME_ZONES=true as an environment variable temporarily).

I think that's not applicable. windows remains unsupported for geospatial since there's no dll support?

[otan]

I think that's not applicable. windows remains unsupported for geospatial since there's no dll support?

the DLLs are there, haven't been able to test yet because I haven't had time to grab a windows VM.

[knz]

@otan @rmloveland sorry I can't be of help right now, but the way to troubleshoot this is to remove this condition from pkg/util/timeutil/zoneinfo.go:

        if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "zoneinfo.zip") {
                err = errTZDataNotFound
        }

(otherwise the code masks the exact cause of the problem)

And then inspect the error reported on windows for more details. Only when we know exactly what's wrong, can we expect to fix it.

[knz]

Alternatively, try renaming your .zip file to somethingelse.zip (i.e. not "zoneinfo.zip"), then point the ZONEINFO env var to that

then try again

it should bypass the condition above

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[gliptak]

This still fails using v20.1.6

.\cockroach.exe version
Build Tag:    v20.1.6
Build Time:   2020/09/24 18:28:05
Distribution: CCL
Platform:     windows amd64 (x86_64-w64-mingw32)
Go Version:   go1.13.9
C Compiler:   gcc 6.3.0
Build SHA-1:  be8c0a720e98a147263424cc13fc9bfc75f46013
Build Type:   release

Workaround from above helped

set COCKROACH_INCONSISTENT_TIME_ZONES=true

[knz]

@otan I think your change fixed this issue right? If so feel free to close this.