Year 2038 Bug

Computer programs, softwares and systems that uses 32 bit integer to represent UNIX Time will fail after 19^th, Jan, 2038 at 3:14:07.

What ?

Unix Time is another way of telling time, mostly for computer’s understanding. Each instances are defined as number of seconds elapsed after 1970-01-01 00:00:00.

Eg: UNIX Time for 31^st Aug 2012 18:59:09 = 1346439549

On 19^th, Jan, 2038 at 3:14:07, the 32 bit signed integer will reach its limit. After that, bit will overflow the 32-bit counter and reset the time to 1^st Jan, 1901.

Attention to Mysql Users

Mysql 5 is a 32 bit database, it has a function UNIX_TIMESTAMP() which returns seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00. This function will return only 0 after 19^th Jan, 2038 03:14:07 GMT.


The end time would be different for each region based on their time zone.

Auckland	+12:00	19-01-2038 15:14:07
Sydney	+10:00	19-01-2038 13:14:07
Tokyo	+9:00	19-01-2038 12:14:07
Beijing	+8:00	19-01-2038 11:14:07
Mumbai	+5:30	19-01-2038 08:44:07
Dubai	+4:00	19-01-2038 07:14:07
Nairobi	+3:00	19-01-2038 06:14:07
Cairo	+2:00	19-01-2038 05:14:07
Paris	+1:00	19-01-2038 04:14:07
London	UTC	19-01-2038 03:14:07
Brasilia	-3:00	19-01-2038 00:14:07
Atlantic Time	-4:00	18-01-2038 23:14:07
Eastern Time	-5:00	18-01-2038 22:14:07
Central Time	-6:00	18-01-2038 21:14:07
Mountain Time	-7:00	18-01-2038 20:14:07
Pacific Time	-8:00	18-01-2038 19:14:07
Hawai	-10:00	18-01-2038 17:14:07

References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
2. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/date-and-time-functions.html#function_unix-timestamp