Due Date 20 January 2038

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 20

Description:
All loans performed have a due date of 20 January 2038. This seems to be hardcoded and cannot be changed. What is causing this error?

Resolution:
What sounds like a very strange and rare error, was reported by several customers in the last years, all reports referring to this date.

The calculation of this date is related to the fact that 19 Jan 2038 is the latest possible system date that can be stored as a 32-bit integer (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem). Therefore Aleph currently cannot handle due dates later than this date, and every due date in the distant future is represented as 20 January 2038. This should not be a problem in everyday work since no library would willingly define such a long loan period.

If you encounter this error, the cause is most likely tab17. For example, if you define only closing days for a sublibrary, the system cannot find any day where the library is open and where a return of an item is possible. In this case all due dates will be displayed as 20 January 2038.

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013