Date output is wrong - December 31, 1969

Yeah, with that Time snippet here’s what I get back:

strftime(): June 20, 2008
date(): June 20, 2008

So, it’s definitely getting the unix time correct.. But...

OK, could the MySQL sorting bug cause a problem? I have been on the phone with LiquidWeb about the problem and it seems that they upgraded MySQL from 5.0.45 without telling me. It was right around the time that I started having these date problems. They’re going to upgrade to 5.0.54 and I’ll report back if that fixes anything.

Nope, the MySQL update did not fix anything. I guess cPanel supposedly upgraded to a version of MySQL that had a fix for the sorting bug. But, I’m not sure if the sorting bug had anything to do with the date output.


UPDATE: Still no luck. Any takers? Pretty please.

I apologize for bumping, but I am desperate to get this thing fixed. Has anyone experienced this problem before and how did you solve it?

I am stumped with this one. My instinct still thinks that it is a conflict with Ditto somehow since we have been able to test that it is not a server (php/mysql) issue.

I would test a simple Ditto call to test this out (with any filters or extenders) to try to isolate it even more.

sorry i can’t help, and got your hopes up by replying to this thread... but, for what it’s worth, i wanted to pitch in that this is happening to me as well.

my version of MYSQL is also 5.0.45 (it has not been upgraded like yours has to 5.0.54). and i’m not actually having the problem with Ditto exactly, I’m having it with a custom snippet that i think was the genesis of Ditto. same author (Mark) but it’s called Podcastfeedx9. Mark was helping me get my site running some years ago now, and he cooked up this snippet for me. later he cleaned it up, added more options, and made it Ditto is my understanding. it has always "just worked" for me, so i haven’t wanted to rock the boat and change to anything else.

i don’t know a thing about php, so it’s all greek to me, but when i search for the offending 12/31/1969 date (or any other way you might format it) i get nothing. i do find lots of references to "$pubdate" and some for "$builddate". so i suspect i’m having the exact same problem you are.

i too REALLY wish we could get it solved!

From the VBulletin forums; actually I found a number of similar troubles with VBulletin.

12-31-1969 means there is an invalid timestamp or something is wrong with the input where you call vbdate(). What’s in the database? Check to make sure dateline is an integer and it has enough characters to hold a full timestamp. That’s where I would start.

Also I found references that any NULL values in a timestamp field will return that same date. Somebody else was getting it when they tried to create a timestamp out of a value that was already a timestamp.

thank you very much for your suggestion sottwell, but could i ask you to be even more detailed in your recommendation for how to proceed?

for instance, i don’t really know what a vbdate() is, or where to check on it. i don’t know how to find out if my timestamp field is NULL. i, in short, am completely ignorant in every way that would be helpful if i were not.

maybe give me directions like "log into your myphpadmin, click on such and such icon/link/whatever, then search for this term and when you find it, change it to this..." something like that. but, you know, with the actual steps that would work.

if this isn’t possible because there are too many variables in play, i understand. don’t kill yourself or anything. just bare with me as i know absolutely nothing about anything. heh.

That was just a quote from the VBulletin forums, vbdate is a field in their database. As far as how to proceed, I really don’t know. These were just things I found that I thought might be of some use.

Check your database, and make sure that all the fields that hold dates are set to "NOT NULL" with a default of 0.

thanks sottwell!

i went thru every entry in myphpadmin, and looked at all the rows or columns or whatever they are, and didn’t see anything suspicious with regard to NULL status. almost everything is set to 0 (NULL: NO), but the handful of entries that were NULL didn’t have to do with dates.

the publishdate in particular, which is where the problem lies, i found in the "Table: modx_site_content" area, and nothing in there was NULL.

so i guess it’s not that. but thanks for the suggestion anyway!