Year 2038 problem The Year 2038 problem is an issue for computing and data storage situations in which time values are stored or calculated as a signed 32-bit integer, and the number is interpreted as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970 (the epoch). Systems working on 32-bit cannot encode times after 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038, analogous to the Y2K problem , in which 2-digit values representing the number of years since 1900 could not encode the year 2000 or later. Most 32-bit Unix like systems store and manipulate time in this Unix time format, so the year 2038 problem is sometimes referred to as the Unix Millennium Bug by association. What is Unix time? The Unix epoch time is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970 (midnight UTC/GMT), not counting leap seconds . Literally speaking the epoch is Unix time 0 (midnight 1/1/1970), but ‘epoch’ is often used as a synonym for ‘Unix time’. Many Unix systems...