How One Engineer Debugged a Year 2038 Bug in 2025
from The Software Engineering Podcast with Fexingo: Code, Architecture, and Engineering Best Practices Hosted by Fexingo
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore a real-world Y2038 bug that surfaced in 2025, years before the famous epoch overflow. They dissect how a legacy C++ trading system stored timestamps as 32-bit signed integers, causing a critical failure when a date field crossed the 2,147,483,647-second threshold. Lucas explains the root cause, the step-by-step debugging process using binary analysis, and the migration to 64-bit time_t. Luna questions whether the engineering team could have caught it earlier with better static analysis. The conversation covers signed vs unsigned integers, epoch time, and practical lessons for any developer working with date calculations in embedded or financial systems. A focused case study that shows why old bugs never really die. #SoftwareEngineering #Y2038 #Bug #C++ #LegacySystems #Debugging #EpochTime #TimeOverflow #BinaryAnalysis #StaticAnalysis #CodeReview #EmbeddedSystems #FinanceTech #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #Technology #EngineeringBestPractices #UnixTime Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo
Embed this episode
No transcript yet.