As a result of skipping time to release the game's ``do not play for 10 years'' achievement, the ``2038 year problem'' hits and the font display of Steam is a mess



On Steam , a platform for download sales and streaming play of PC games, a report that the displayed text suddenly became a random font became a hot topic. According to the user who reported it, the `` 2038 problem '' was the cause of the random font change, and attention is focused on the process and results.




Investigating why Steam started picking a random font
http://blog.pkh.me/p/35-investigating-why-steam-started-picking-a-random-font.html

Investigating why Steam started picking a random font | Hacker News
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33673517

Mr. bµg , who is familiar with technology related to graphics and art, explains on his blog that he has reported a bug in which Steam suddenly selected random fonts in the user directory and identified the cause. Mr. bµg initially thought that it was a problem with Steam itself, but since he did not hear similar reports from other users, he speculated that his environment was the problem and conducted an investigation.




According to bµg, the first important thing was that bµg was addicted to the game The Stanley Parable . The Stanley Parable is an adventure game in which the story branches in various ways depending on the player's choice, and depending on whether the player follows the narration or acts freely, it reaches more than 10 endings and Easter eggs.



While enjoying The Stanley Parable, bµg tried to unlock a new achievement of 'I haven't played at all for 5 years'. In order to get the result immediately, bµg seems to have won the rare achievement of The Stanley Parable by disabling

NTP that acquires time information and setting the time in the system to 2030.

Mr. bµg also played the same in the expanded version with new features called ' The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe ' released in 2022. In 'Ultra Deluxe', the period of this 'not playing at all' achievement was extended from 5 years to 10 years, so bµg disabled NTP again and changed the system time. At this time, instead of 2032, which adds 10 years to 2022, we have set it to 2040 because it is a good number. Mr. bµg points out that due to this setting, Steam's access time was changed to 2040, which caused a font bug on Steam due to the '2038 problem'.

The year 2038 problem is that programs malfunction due to UNIX time overflow, but most programs have already solved it. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the code that causes the year 2038 problem remains in multiple places, and programs that copy that code will cause the year 2038 problem.

The code that causes the 2038 problem to reoccur has been copied to many places - GIGAZINE



Mr. bµg first found the following error displayed on the console. The error says 'EOVERFLOW', so you know you're causing an overflow somewhere.



Mr. bµg found that the access time was recorded as 2040 as the cause of the overflow. Mr. bµg commented that this bug was 'not a bug but a self-harming bug,' and at the same time, 'I'm really looking forward to the arrival of 2038.'



Mr. bµg's report is also on Hacker News, saying, ``There is no doubt that 2038 will be an interesting year.'' The 2038 problem is a hot topic. When one user reverse-engineered ' FINAL FANTASY VII ', he said, 'I came across code that actually checks if the current date is before 2038. If the access time was over 2038, the program was refused to run, ”he said, ``In 2038 , many old software will have similar outage problems.''

Other users also said, ``Since UNIX calculates not only the display format but also the schedule for the future, the closer the date and time you set is closer to 2038, the more programs will malfunction.'' In comparison to the 'Y2000 Problem, ' which was also concerned about problems related to programming, it is being discussed that it will become a more complex and fundamental problem. .

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in Software, Posted by log1e_dh