19 January 2038, 03:14:07 UTC

Year 2038 problem

Signed 32-bit Unix time overflows on that second and reads as 13 December 1901. A 64-bit laptop is usually fine. A 32-bit image, a 4-byte column, or a box installed for 15 years is not.

Check an install date The mechanism

—Days

—Hours

—Minutes

—Seconds

Last valid second 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC
Next second reads 1901-12-13 20:45:52 UTC

Four dates

Clock	When	What wraps
NTP	7 Feb 2036 06:28:16 UTC	32-bit seconds since 1900, on the wire
Unix time32	19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 UTC	Signed seconds since 1970. Next value reads 1901.
DVB-SI	23 Apr 2038	16-bit Modified Julian Date. Guides, not the picture.
GPS week	20 Nov 2038	10-bit week number. Not Unix time.

Where it still matters

Backwards Risk — deadline minus service life. A 10-year controller installed in 2018 is already inside the window.
Linux — kernel 5.6 and glibc 2.34 can do time64 on 32-bit hardware. Debian i386 stays time32. Old images do not rebuild themselves.
ext4 and XFS — 128-byte inodes and XFS without bigtime still stop at 2038.
MySQL TIMESTAMP — the column is 32-bit even on a 64-bit server.

Press mentions, with links out: Media. Embed the countdown: embed.html.

Year 2038 problem

Four dates

Where it still matters

Start here