#1142435 gnome-control-center: UI completely freezes when clicking "Time Zone" in Date & Time settings

Package:
gnome-control-center
Source:
gnome-control-center
Description:
utilities to configure the GNOME desktop
Submitter:
George Orwell
Date:
2026-07-19 21:21:02 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1142435#5
Date:
2026-07-19 20:20:13 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

The user interface becomes completely unresponsive and freezes. When running gnome-control-center in debug mode via terminal, the console is continuously spammed with an infinite loop of date/time format DEBUG messages. The UI never recovers.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open GNOME Settings (gnome-control-center).
2. Navigate to System > Date & Time.
3. Click the "Unlock" button and authenticate.
4. Click on the "Time Zone" row.

Observed Behavior:
The user interface becomes completely unresponsive and freezes. When running gnome-control-center in debug mode via terminal, the console is continuously spammed with an infinite loop of date/time format DEBUG messages. The UI never recovers.

Here is a snippet of the looping debug output:
GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: replaced_format: Jul 19_20:58 20:58:00.0404 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: is_utf8: TRUE 20:58:00.0404 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: ret: Jul 19 20:58 20:58:00.0404 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: clock_format: 24h 20:58:00.0404 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: show_weekday: FALSE 20:58:00.0404 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: show_full_date: TRUE 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: show_seconds: FALSE 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: format_string: %b %-e_%R 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: no_enspace: %b %-e_%R 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: replaced_format: Jul 19_20:58 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: is_utf8: TRUE 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: ret: Jul 19 20:58 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: clock_format: 24h 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: show_weekday: FALSE 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: show_full_date: TRUE 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: show_seconds: FALSE 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: format_string: %b %-e_%R 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: no_enspace: %b %-e_%R 20:58:00.0405 GnomeDesktop[20863]: DEBUG: replaced_format: Jul 19_20:58

Expected Behavior:
The Time Zone map and selection interface should open normally without locking up the main application thread.