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What happens if your system time is 1/1/1970 and you update to iOS 9.3?

T

Ternary

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 4, 2015
168
162
Curious about this, since starting with iOS 9.3, you can't set the system time earlier than 1/1/2001 anymore.

Anyone daring enough to try?
 
You mean if you are hit by the bug with a phone that isn't working because of it...what happens if/when you upgrade to iOS 9.3?
 
C DM said:
You mean if you are hit by the bug with a phone that isn't working because of it...what happens if/when you upgrade to iOS 9.3?
Click to expand...
I mean if you set your system time to January 1, 1970 on iOS 9.2.1 and then start the iOS 9.3 update OTA.
 
Pretty sure 9.2.1 re-release fixed this already. I believe you just had to DFU restore to that version and it fixed the issue even if they device didn't boot beforehand.
 
Depends on how updates occur. Is it booting the full kernel and starting the write process? Or is it only booting something temporary to actually do the install? I'd bet that you'd get stuck and have to restore the phone with iTunes.
 
Let me tell you what happens. A customer changed the date on an iPhone to 1/1/1970 and rebooted the phone which threw it into the booting loop. We were able to put the phone into recovery mode, connect it in to iTunes and update its software to 9.3. The phone booted up normally with its date set to 1/1/1970 and everything was back to normal.
 
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Dephibio said:
Let me tell you what happens. A customer changed the date on an iPhone to 1/1/1970 and rebooted the phone which threw it into the booting loop. We were able to put the phone into recovery mode, connect it in to iTunes and update its software to 9.3. The phone booted up normally with its date set to 1/1/1970 and everything was back to normal.
Click to expand...
I was thinking more along the lines of an OTA update. What would happen if you changed the date to 1/1/1970 on a phone running 9.2.1 and then proceeded to start the 9.3 OTA update? Would it not work, since the wrong time prevents proper communication with the server for verifying? Or would it start and fail? Or maybe just go normal?
 
aldrinjtauro said:
I was thinking more along the lines of an OTA update. What would happen if you changed the date to 1/1/1970 on a phone running 9.2.1 and then proceeded to start the 9.3 OTA update? Would it not work, since the wrong time prevents proper communication with the server for verifying? Or would it start and fail? Or maybe just go normal?
Click to expand...

Can't help you with that.
 
Dephibio said:
Let me tell you what happens. A customer changed the date on an iPhone to 1/1/1970 and rebooted the phone which threw it into the booting loop. We were able to put the phone into recovery mode, connect it in to iTunes and update its software to 9.3. The phone booted up normally with its date set to 1/1/1970 and everything was back to normal.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I thought that part of the "fix" for this was that it was more of a workaround in the sense that dates simply couldn't be set that far back (basically to where they would cause an issue).
 
C DM said:
Interesting. I thought that part of the "fix" for this was that it was more of a workaround in the sense that dates simply couldn't be set that far back (basically to where they would cause an issue).
Click to expand...

I don't know how that "fix" would work with calendar events. If if Ios restricts you from setting date as far back, you could receive a calendar event of that date/time, with an alert. Wonder what happens then.
 
electronicsguy said:
I don't know how that "fix" would work with calendar events. If if Ios restricts you from setting date as far back, you could receive a calendar event of that date/time, with an alert. Wonder what happens then.
Click to expand...
That wouldn't set the system time to that date though.
 
C DM said:
That wouldn't set the system time to that date though.
Click to expand...

I know. But the bug may trigger some underlying problem with events on that date as well. Since they haven't published the underlying bug within Linux itself (at least I don't know in detail what it is), it's possible that an event like this may also trigger it.
 
electronicsguy said:
I know. But the bug may trigger some underlying problem with events on that date as well. Since they haven't published the underlying bug within Linux itself (at least I don't know in detail what it is), it's possible that an event like this may also trigger it.
Click to expand...
Possible perhaps, although in this case it seems that the bug was with system time and in the context of the boot process.
 
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