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The Y2k38 bug was detected a few months ago, but there was no actual testing done to prove that this will affect our current computers. Now this bug can actually start to cause some damage. To test this we can try using any chatting client either AOL Messenger , MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Trillian, or Gaim will do. As for my testing this bug affected all of these applications (windows). To test these for yourself do the following: First double click on the time in the bottom right-hand corner. Change the date to something after January 19, 2038 (2039 is fine!). Now start up any of the chatting clients mentioned above. Try sending a message to someone else (or to yourself if it supports it). As soon as you do this, the entire program should crash within a few seconds and will display some sort of error message. It will then bring up a message asking to send an error report or debug. (The only application I tested that actually survived this bug was Skype. It just let me send the message to who ever I want and it never complained, but the rest crashed.) From the actual technical problem, apparently as soon as the year 2038 strikes, all certain computers will immediately get confused and switch the date to December 13, 1901 from January 2038. Please post any other programs you have experienced this problem with in the comments. Hope people don’t wait until the last minute to find a solution to this problem.
Update: Here are some more links Project 2038 | 2038 Bug | …
Interesting, I have AIM Enterprise at work, and no crash. By the time 2038 comes around there will have been a million updates to these applications, and my guess is, no one will ever even remember this.
By that time, I will have a new computer. So I don’t care about the one I am on now.
do you think that computers won’t be implanted into our brains by this date!? Our Instant Messages will be transmitted through airwaves dude!!!
yeah i agree with the posts above, by the time 2038 rolls around i doubt there will even be instant messaging!but cool find though!
The problem comes from the fact that the date is stored as a 32bit number in seconds starting around 1970 I think. The problem should aliviate itself when we switch to 64bit computers.
OH NO!! 2038? wait. what year is it now?…
> The problem comes from the fact that the date is stored as a 32bit number in seconds starting around 1970 I think.
Correct–I will add that it’s a 32-bit *signed* number. This way of keeping track of time is called `Unix time’ (after one of the best OSes in the world ;) ). The reason you get a date near 1901 instead of 2039 is that your machine uses two’s complement (and, of course, that your programs or OS is buggy).
> The problem should aliviate itself when we switch to 64bit computers.
Not automatically. If only 32 bits are allocated for the time (say, in an i-node), you can only represent 2**32 different values–independent of whether or not your processer has 64-bit registers.
> OH NO!! 2038? wait. what year is it now?
35 A.U. (Anno Unix).
It also fucks up PeerGaurdian
And Symantec Antivirus
While I think that getting this issue resolved prior to 1938 is important, I would like to think that we will have evolved past instant messaging in the way that AIM does it by then.
Where we are really going to run into problems soon is in applications like loan financing… come three years from now a thirty-year mortgage will be going into 2038 and the computers will have to be able to make those calculations properly.
It didn’t crash for me between a GAIM for linux and AIM for XP.
ill be dead so i dont care…
It doesn’t matter if we have the computers fixed by 2038. In two years our CURRENT computers will be calculating 30-year mortgages… incorrectly.
Well ok this works for me my time is set correctly, buy when i log of aim it pops with an error message saying Error close, or debug this happens every time so it may not be the time
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I thought Symantec did this on it’s own :)
I thought Symantec did this on it’s own :)
Hah, you know, I was going to say that, but you beat me to it >.<
ha ha…….. y2k38????? Chappa matter…….. Poi velaya parunga…….
Nice testing buddy :) Many updates will come and 3 decades left so no problem ;)
i also checked with skype, it crashed i need to check with other applications.