Japanese calendar era bug

Short description: Computer bug

The Japanese calendar era bug is a possible computer bug related to the change of the Japanese era name.

## Contents

* 1 Background
* 2 Documented errors
* 3 Fixes
* 4 See also
* 5 References

## Background

The Japanese calendar has era names that change with the reign of the Japanese emperor. As much of the initial rise of modern computing had occurred during the Heisei era, most software had only supported that era.[1]

A new era name was expected with the 2019 Japanese imperial transition. However, since the change of eras is infrequent, most software had not been tested to ensure that it would behave correctly with an additional era. To ensure that the new era would be handled correctly, some systems were provided test mechanisms to simulate a new era ahead of time.[2]

In early April 2019, the new era name was announced to be Reiwa for "beautiful harmony."

## Documented errors

Some minor problems have been reported due to improper handling of the era transition.

* ATMs placed inside the Lawson chain of konbini reported that due to a banking holiday funds deposited would not be available until May 7, 1989, due to a date conversion improperly using Heisei 1 (1989) instead of Reiwa 1 (2019).[3]

## Fixes

* Windows 10 version 1803 included a registry entry with placeholder information for the expected era transition, intended to help users discover any software limitations around the expected change to the new era.[2][4]
* macOS Mojave 10.14.5 and iOS 12.3 included support for the Reiwa era.[5][6]
* Unicode code point U+32FF was reserved in September 2018 for representing the new era name,[7] and Unicode 12.1 included the U+32FF character for Reiwa.[8]
* The GNU C Library was updated to include the new era name in the 2.30 release.[9]

## See also

* Time formatting and storage bugs
* 2019 Japanese imperial transition

## References

1. ↑ "Era Handling for the Japanese Calendar - Windows applications" (in en-us). https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/intl/era-handling-for-the-japanese-calendar.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 kexugit. "The Japanese Calendar's Y2K Moment" (in en-us). https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/shawnste/the-japanese-calendars-y2k-moment.
3. ↑ Baseel, Casey (30 April 2019). "ATMs in Japan are saying they'll transfer your money back in time to 1989" (in en). https://soranews24.com/2019/04/30/atms-in-japan-are-saying-theyll-transfer-your-money-back-in-time-to-1989/.
4. ↑ "Summary of new Japanese era Windows updates - KB4469068". https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/summary-of-new-japanese-era-windows-updates-kb4469068-1e760b2f-619a-ab02-723a-5b7e97a916bf.
5. ↑ "Download macOS Mojave 10.14.5 Update". May 13, 2019. https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2001?locale=en_US.
6. ↑ Peterson, Jake (April 9, 2019). "Apple Just Released iOS 12.3 Public Beta 2 for iPhone, Features Small Updates to Wallet & Date/Time". https://ios.gadgethacks.com/news/apple-just-released-ios-12-3-public-beta-2-for-iphone-features-small-updates-wallet-date-time-0195939/.
7. ↑ "New Japanese Era". http://blog.unicode.org/2018/09/new-japanese-era.html.
8. ↑ "Unicode 12.1.0". http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode12.1.0/.
9. ↑ "22964 - The Japanese Era name will be changed on May 1, 2019". https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=22964.

* Hern, Alex (2018-07-25). "Big tech warns of 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication" (in en-GB). The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/25/big-tech-warns-japan-millennium-bug-y2k-emperor-akihito-abdication.
* "Japan's new Y2K: Chips with Everything podcast" (in en-GB). The Guardian. 2019-01-04. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/audio/2019/jan/04/japan-emperor-akihito-new-y2k-millennium-bug-chips-with-everything-podcast.

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Year-related problems

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Binary storage related|

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Hexadecimal storage related|

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