leap-year

List of 2016 Leap Day Bugs

Matt Johnson-Pint

• 4 min read

The following is a list of all the bugs caught during leap day, February 29th, 2016.  Each link below references the issue with supporting details where available.

If you're looking for information of how to avoid leap year bugs, or examples of disastrous leap year bugs from previous years, please read my article on the Microsoft Azure blog.

Please let me know if you have any corrections or additions.  Thanks.

Last updated 2019-04-03

Verified / Deferred

Items in this section had an impact on February 29th, but resolved themselves on March 1st without any specific fix or resolution reported.  One assumes that the vendor will take appropriate action before the 2020 leap day, or has already taken such action, but to the best of my knowledge no confirmation has yet been provided.

Verified / Resolved

Items in this section had an impact on February 29th, were verified as bugs, and are now resolved.

Verified / Resolved / Unknown Impact

Items in this section are also verified and resolved, but the vendor did not supply any supporting details as to what problems they actually had.

Verified / Unresolved

  • PHP - Missing Feb 29 when using DateTime::createFromFormat with day of year placed before the year. Reported in 2012, and never fixed.  Workaround: Put the year first.
  • Perl TimeDate module - A unit test failed to run on Feb 29.  A patch was provided, but has not yet been applied.

Unconfirmed

These items surfaced during my search or were brought to my attention by others, however I have not been able to confirm their validity.  They may or may not have been caused by the leap day, or possibly not have happened at all.

  • Apple iOS  (iPhone / iPad)  Possible bug in calendar app A few reports of alarms clock issues on Feb 29: 1 2 3 4 5  
  • Apple Watch Calendar preview - A few reports of receiving a badge early: 1 2
  • SunTran Alerts transportation app (Tucson, Arizona)  Reportedly, app shows no bus route stop times.  
  • Qantas Airways mobile app  Reportedly, app didn't allow flight check in on February 29th.  
  • Jeep Automobiles  Multiple reports of the dashboard clock resetting.   1 2 3 (one mentions a 2014 Jeep Laredo)
  • SDG&E Utilities (San Diego, California)  Missing Feb 29 in an energy usage chart on their web site (used with smart meters).  
  • Intuit Turbotax 2015  Allegedly not allowing Feb 29 as a date for eFiling signature.  
  • United States Postal Service  Issues with redelivery scheduling: 1 2  
  • MYZONE fitness tracker  Month total reset to zero on Feb 29 instead of Mar 1  
  • United Airlines  Flight notification allegedly sent one day too early.  

Honorary Mention

  • Python (in time.strptime function)  Not really a "bug", but just a commonly misused API. Evaluating future change as an enhancement.  
  • HTC Sync Manager  Appointments from Jan 1 - Feb 29 were off by a day. Affected users for many weeks. Fixed in version 3.1.67.0, released in January (before leap day)  
  • A "We I.D." digital sign  Mysteriously calculated the date of birth to be 21 years old as 1932. (2016 - 1932 = 84     84 / 4 = 21)  
  • TimeHop iOS/Android app  Only showed tweets from four years ago, instead of the usual one year. It's not a bug, it's a feature!  

Looking to avoid leap year bugs next time around?   Check out my original post about leap year bugs.  And don't forget - December 31st 2016 is another important date!

Pluralsight
Leap year bugs are covered in my Pluralsight course, Date and Time Fundamentals. If you enjoy this topic, please consider watching the video course!

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