Example showing how the date would reset (at 03:14:08 UTC on 19 January 2038).

The year 2038 problem may cause some computer software to fail before or in the year 2038. The problem affects programs that use the POSIX time representation, which represents system time as the number of seconds (ignoring leap seconds) since January 1, 1970. This representation is standard in Unix-like operating systems and also affects software written for most other operating systems because of the broad deployment of C. On most 32-bit systems, the time_t data type used to store this second count is a signed 32-bit integer. The latest time that can be represented in this format, following the POSIX standard, is 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, January 19, 2038. Times beyond this moment will "wrap around" and be represented internally as a negative number, and cause programs to fail, since they will see these times not as being in 2038 but rather in 1901. Erroneous calculations and decisions may therefore result. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Computer program. ... Unix time, or POSIX time, is a system for describing points in time. ... In computer science and computer programming, system time represents a computer systems notion of the passing of time. ... A leap second is a one-second adjustment to civil time in order to keep it close to the mean solar time. ... is the 1st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ... C is a general-purpose, block structured, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ... Unix time, or POSIX time, is a system for describing points in time. ... Signedness is a property of an integer number used by a compiler to indicate if variables of a numeric type are capable of storing both positive and negative numbers, or just positive. ... 32-bit is a term applied to processors, and computer architectures which manipulate the address and data in 32-bit chunks. ... In computer science, the term integer is used to refer to any data type which can represent some subset of the mathematical integers. ... Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is a high-precision atomic time standard. ... January 19 is the 19th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2038 (MMXXXVIII) will be a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

"Year 2038" is frequently abbreviated to "Y2038", "Y2K38", or "Y2.038K" in software professionals' jargon. Since the first erroneous date will be Friday, December 13, 1901, some have speculated that it may become known as the Friday the 13th bug.^[1] December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1901 (MCMI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... A Friday occurring on the 13th day of any month is considered to be a day of bad luck in English, German, Polish and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe. ...

Known problems

In May 2006, reports surfaced of an early Y2038 problem in the AOLserver software. The software would specify that a database request should "never" time out by specifying a timeout date one billion seconds in the future. One billion seconds after 21:27:28 on 12 May 2006 is beyond the 2038 cutoff date, so after this date, the timeout calculation overflowed and calculated a timeout date that was actually in the past, causing the software to crash.^[2][3] AOLserver is America Onlines open source web server. ... May 12 is the 132nd day of the year (133rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...

Setting the clock on a Microsoft Windows operating system to the year 2038 will cause certain programs to "encounter a problem". One example is that AVG Anti-Virus will refuse to start, but when the clock is set to another year before 2038, it will work. Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... AVG Anti-Virus (AVG means Anti-Virus Guard) [1] is a range of Antivirus software for the Microsoft Windows and Linux platforms. ...

On an eMac, January 2038 displays 38 days. You cannot go forward in months anymore. You can go forward to January 2039, though, and go a lot further. In January 2039, the faded numbers belonging to the previous month instead say "Na". This presumably stands for "not applicable", but this is normally abbreviated to "N/A".

Solutions

There is no easy fix for this problem for existing CPU/OS combinations. Changing the definition of time_t to use a 64-bit type would break binary compatibility for software, data storage, and generally anything dealing with the binary representation of time. Changing time_t to an unsigned 32-bit integer, effectively allowing timestamps to be accurate until the year 2106, would affect many programs that deal with time differences. Die of an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor (actual size: 12×6. ... // An operating system (OS) is a set of computer programs that manage the hardware and software resources of a computer. ...

Most operating systems for 64-bit architectures already use 64-bit integers in their time_t. The move to these architectures is already underway and many expect it to be complete before 2038. Using a (signed) 64-bit value introduces a new wraparound date in about 290 billion years. However, as of 2006, hundreds of millions of 32-bit systems are deployed, many in embedded systems, and it is far from certain they will all be replaced by 2038. Despite the modern 18- to 24-month generational update in computer systems technology, embedded computers may operate unchanged for the life of the system they control. The use of 32-bit time_t has also been encoded into file formats, which means it can live on for a long time beyond the life of the machines involved. In computing, a 64-bit component is one in which data are processed or stored in 64-bit units (words). ... Hardware is an expression used within the engineering disciplines to explicitly distinguish the (electronic computer) hardware from the software which runs in it. ... It has been suggested that Embedded System Design in an FPGA be merged into this article or section. ...

A variety of alternative proposals have been made, some of which are in use, including storing either milliseconds or microseconds since an epoch (typically either January 1, 1970 or January 1, 2000) in a signed-64 bit integer, providing a minimum of 300,000 years range.^[4][5] Other proposals for new time representations provide different precisions, ranges, and sizes (almost always wider than 32 bits), as well as solving other related problems, such as the handling of leap seconds. In chronology, an epoch (or epochal date, or epochal event) means an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. ... is the 1st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... is the 1st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A leap second is a one-second adjustment to civil time in order to keep it close to the mean solar time. ...

See also

• Year 2000 problem
• Year 10,000 problem
• Epoch (reference date)
• Network Time Protocol
• Unix time
• System time
• Unix billennium

The Year 2000 problem (also known as the Y2K problem, the millennium bug, the Y2K Bug or just Y2K) was the result of a practice in early computer program design that caused some date-related processing to operate incorrectly for dates and times on and after January 1, 2000. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... In chronology, an epoch (or epochal date, or epochal event) means an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. ... The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a protocol for synchronizing the clocks of computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks. ... Unix time, or POSIX time, is a system for describing points in time: it is the number of seconds elapsed since midnight UTC on the morning of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds. ... In computer science and computer programming, system time represents a computer systems notion of the passing of time. ... The Unix Billennium is the point in time represented by a Unix time value of 109: 01:46:40 UTC on September 9, 2001. ...

References

Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 194th day of the year (195th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... is the 179th day of the year (180th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... is the 137th day of the year (138th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... is the 216th day of the year (217th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• The Year-2038 Bug Website
• Entry in How Stuff Works
• The Project 2038 Frequently Asked Questions
• Critical dates 2038