Thanks for the report. I'm unable to reproduce crash with the code you've supplied. A backtrace is needed. I suspect there is rather an environment issue.

Thanks.

I would like to provide one, but all tools I have on hand do not recognize PHP as valid executable.

The usual way to get a backtrace is described here https://bugs.php.net/bugs-generating-backtrace-win32.php

Thanks.

The link to debug diag tools needs an update.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49924

Full analysis of two crashed processes there: http://www.rootdir.org/.offload/CrashHangAnalysis.mht

The stack dump:

Thread 0 - System ID 16148Entry point	  php!mainCRTStartup
Create time	  02.03.2016 23:29:52
Time spent in user mode	  0 Days 00:00:00.000
Time spent in kernel mode	  0 Days 00:00:00.015



This thread is not fully resolved and may or may not be a problem. Further analysis of these threads may be required.
	  Source
ntdll!ZwWaitForMultipleObjects+a	  
KERNELBASE!GetCurrentProcess+40	  
kernel32!WaitForMultipleObjectsEx+b3	  
kernel32!WinExec+3b5	  
kernel32!WinExec+537	  
kernel32!WinExec+58f	  
kernel32!UnhandledExceptionFilter+1fc	  
ntdll!EtwEventSetInformation+20d8	  
ntdll!_C_specific_handler+9c	  
ntdll!RtlDecodePointer+ad	  
ntdll!RtlUnwindEx+bbf	  
ntdll!KiUserExceptionDispatcher+2e	  
php5ts!timelib_parse_tzfile+100 [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\lib\parse_tz.c @ 398 + 7]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\lib\parse_tz.c @ 398 + 7
php5ts!php_date_parse_tzfile+cf [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 926 + b]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 926 + b
php5ts!get_timezone_info+4b [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 1001 + 1f]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 1001 + 1f
php5ts!php_format_date+3b [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 1257]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 1257
php5ts!php_date+91 [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 1241]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 1241
php5ts!zif_date+23 [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 1371]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\ext\date\php_date.c @ 1371
php5ts!zend_do_fcall_common_helper_SPEC+549 [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\zend\zend_vm_execute.h @ 559]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\zend\zend_vm_execute.h @ 559
php5ts!execute_ex+de [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\zend\zend_vm_execute.h @ 363 + 3a]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\zend\zend_vm_execute.h @ 363 + 3a
php5ts!zend_execute+4c7 [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\zend\zend_vm_execute.h @ 389]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\zend\zend_vm_execute.h @ 389
php5ts!zend_execute_scripts+19c [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\zend\zend.c @ 1342]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\zend\zend.c @ 1342
php5ts!php_execute_script+234 [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\main\main.c @ 2607]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\main\main.c @ 2607
php!do_cli+9df [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\sapi\cli\php_cli.c @ 995]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\sapi\cli\php_cli.c @ 995
php!main+65a [c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\sapi\cli\php_cli.c @ 1378 + 15]	  c:\php-sdk\php56\vc11\x64\php-5.6.18-ts\sapi\cli\php_cli.c @ 1378 + 15
php!__tmainCRTStartup+10f [f:\dd\vctools\crt_bld\self_64_amd64\crt\src\crtexe.c @ 536 + 19]	  f:\dd\vctools\crt_bld\self_64_amd64\crt\src\crtexe.c @ 536 + 19
kernel32!BaseThreadInitThunk+d
ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart+21

Thanks for the backtrace. I think i've figured out the issue. The internal db format has changed as of 5.6.9, but the binaries are built using a lower PHP version. This information is used only at the compilation time, thus producing a php_timezonedb.dll with an incompatible db format. I've retriggered the build using newer PHP sources, please redownload http://windows.php.net/downloads/pecl/releases/timezonedb/2016.1/php_timezonedb-2016.1-5.6-ts-vc11-x64.zip and check.

Thanks.

Seems to be fixed, thanks! Just noticed the extension binary size grew 2.5 times. Is that the case of changed database format?

--- php-cli.out 2016-02-29 21:01:53.948024000 +0300
+++ -   2016-03-03 13:14:50.346512200 +0300
@@ -242,8 +242,8 @@
 date

 date/time support => enabled
-"Olson" Timezone Database Version => 2015.7
-Timezone Database => internal
+"Olson" Timezone Database Version => 2016.1
+Timezone Database => external
 Default timezone => Europe/Moscow

 Directive => Local Value => Master Value
@@ -788,6 +788,11 @@
 tidy.clean_output => no value => no value
 tidy.default_config => no value => no value

+timezonedb
+
+Alternative Timezone Database => enabled
+Timezone Database Version => 2016.1
+
 tokenizer

 Tokenizer Support => enabled

Europe/Moscow:2016-03-03T13:15:56+03:00

Thanks for the quick check. Yes, the new DB format adds some more data.

For the future, this means that I'm going to keep building with the newer sources and the bins won't be compatible with PHP lower than 5.4.41, 5.5.25, 5.6.9.

Thanks.

It's okay. As I'm closing my current project, I'm moving to 5.6 and 7.0 entirely.

Please don't forget to add heads'up on the package page.