Description of actual "production" problems that occurred due to the transition to the year 2000, or inability to handle year 2000 dates.
"Reflections," a Windows graphical FTP product writes "100" as the year to its log files. That is, each log file line starts with "01/07/100 " (previously "12/27/99").
Impact: Minor annoyance to people, should they look at the log files. (...which only happens when other problems cause the program to fail.)
Remediation: Currently ignoring the problem. If scripts automatically read and interpreted the log files, they would probably be patched.
(Better yet, have the vendor fix the FTP program that produces the log file!)
Credit card charges on January 1st charged over & over... forever.
- Discovered:Wednesday, January 5th
- Fixed:Last year, but many small merchants did not upgrade until early January 2000.
- Impact: Visa and MasterCard? charges made on January 1st were also charged on 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc... Problem happened at some of 100,000 merchants that use the CyberCash? software.
- Cause: CyberCash? software uses file name of last digit of year + 2 digit month to store charges. But it also uses the special file name "001" for charges not yet posted. So January 1st charges erroneously went to the special file.
- Remediation:Banks will find and fix most duplicate charges before you're billed. Check your Visa and MasterCard? bills carefully.
- Source: Nando Media / Associated Press via SangersReview?:
Medicare payments to hospitals halted.
- Discovered: Monday, January 3rd
- Fixed: Tuesday, January 4th
- Impact: Claims sent on floppies in 8 or more states. Delays of "a day or so" in payments -- within tolerance allowed by Medicare law.
- Cause: Unknown; suspect software license expiration.
- Source: Washington Post via SangersReview?:
Post office debit cards expired on December 31st; not renewed.
- Discovered: Tuesday, January 4th (when post office opened)
- Fixed: > not yet "fixed"? <
- Impact: "Liberty Cash" debit cards, issued by the post office expired 12/31/1999.
- Cause: Unclear; expiration dates (on mag stripe or in central database???) should have been automatically extended when users "deposited" more money.
- Remediation: Use real cash, or checks.
- Source: Denver Post via SangersReview?:
- Disclaimer: First Data Merchant Systems claims that this is not a Y2K problem. Others differ.
DOD satellites off-line.
- Discovered:?
- Fixed:?
- Impact:No intelligence from satellites for a number of hours.
- Cause:"DOD was unable to test the satellite system comprehensively, and instead did so in pieces."
- Remediation:Backup systems.
- Source:
A summary of "other people's problems":
Although no major Y2K-related problems occurred worldwide resulting in major infrastructure outages or other big problems, many small glitches did result in some interesting stories. Several of these "bugs" from the United States and around the world that made headlines during the rollover weekend are summarized below:
In the United States:
- Some credit card customers had duplicate charges, due to non-compliant retailer software. (detailed above)
- The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago reported a Year 2000 glitch in transferring about $700,000 in tax payments from customers of 60 financial institutions in the region out of $15 billion processed nationally that day.
- Novell reported incorrect date entries of XX/XX/100 (it should be xx/xx/2000), which prevent deferred printing from working.
- IBM reported a date-conversion glitch to Lotus Domino/Notes messages that contain a copy of a document with a date of 2000 or after, or before 1950.
- The Pentagon reported that the operation of one of its spy satellite systems was operating at diminished capacity during the rollover weekend. (detailed above)
- Some motor vehicle departments were unable to issue license plates and registration paperwork.
- The medical industry reported some failures of kidney dialysis machines and other equipment. Why the hell does a dialysis machine know what day it is?
- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) was unable to issue firearm permits temporarily.
- Microsoft reported a Y2K-related display problem with its Hotmail internet e-mail service. Some messages were showing up dated "2099."
In other countries:
- One in 14 British businesses--7 per cent--were hit by the millennium computer bug, the first official Government survey of the problem showed yesterday.
- Computer controls on prison cell doors in British Colombia failed. (...and they said it couldn't happen. ;-)
- Minor problems were discovered at France ground stations for Syracuse II military satellite system.
- In Germany, a bank account holder received an extra 16M Marks, but the money had to be returned.
- In Hungary, several ATMs did not work properly.
- A South Korea apartment complex reported malfunctioning thermostats after the rollover. Why does a thermostat know what day it is?
- Japan reported electronic data interchange problems.
- China reported minor telecommunications and e-mail problems.
- Japan and Ireland reported accounting information dated "1900," as well as date problems in the telecommunications industry.
Can anyone offer references to confirm the following nuclear reactor problems?
- Japan had nuclear plant problems with building access, fuel rod position indicators, sea water temperature gauges, and radiation monitoring systems.
- Minor glitches in management systems in Russian nuclear power plants were reported.
- In Spain, problems were encountered with control systems for two out of nine nuclear reactors.
[Moved from RealProblemsWithYtwok]:
- Pentium 120 MHz notebook rolled back 3 days after sleeping over 1/1/00.
- Digita Organizer, when editing an existing diary entry, changes date from 2000 to 1998. I've since upgraded to Lotus Organizer.
- A 486 33 MHz rolls back to 1980 on reboot.
In other countries:
(evidently this was due (can't find the damned link) to having used an "almost correct" algorithm for counting days in the year -- y2k was a leap year although normally years evenly divisible by 400 are not)
Why does a thermostat know what day it is?
There are some nice computerized thermostats that (in the winter) turn down the heat when no one is (expected to be) home, then up the heat and start warming the house just before the first person is (expected to be) back from work.
Since the leave-the-house and return-to-house times are typically *different* on the weekends than on regular weekdays, they work best when they are set to the correct time and correct day-of-week.
But I agree with the main point -- there's no reason for a thermostat to know what *year* it is.
I'm pretty sure that you need to know the year to be able to correctly tell when a day falls on a weekend or weekday due to leap years and other calendar oddities.
Not if you know what day it was 7 days ago. Maybe it knows public holidays as well?
When Thermostats become part of the InternetOfThings, such things might need to be known, particularly when the host and the Client must operate independently on occasion. See: IndependentOperationOptions?
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Ytwok Errors