An interesting bug relating to the date and time system in iOS has emerged recently. Several users have discovered that if you change your iOS device’s date to January 1st, 1970, your device will be permanently bricked. You can see the process in the video below, and while I don’t have any desire to try it out to confirm, it’s pretty apparent based on separate reports that it’s a legitimate issue.
In order to change your date and time settings, you have to go to the Settings app, tap the General menu, choose Date & Time, and turn off the Set Automatically option. From there, you’ll have to scroll through the menu until it reaches as far back as it goes. After that, go back to the General menu then go back into the Date & Time settings and scroll backwards again. You’ll have to repeat this process until you reach 1970. The video below shows specifically how to do it.
After you successfully set your iOS device’s date to January 1st, 1970, you’ll then want to reboot your phone and book a trip to the Apple Store. Once you reboot, your device will reportedly not come back on. You can put it into DFU and even get iTunes to recognize it to perform a restore, but even after that, it will remain stuck on the boot up screen.
https://twitter.com/ElectronicFart/status/697879712815845376
This bug affects any iOS device that uses a 64-bit processor and is running iOS 8 or newer, including iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. For those unsure, 64 bit processors are the A7, A8, A8X, A9, and A9X (iPhone 5s or later, for instance). If you use a 32 bit device, you’re in the clear.
A Reddit thread offers a handful of possible causes of the issue. The most reasonable appears to be that it all comes down to time zones and that setting the date to January 1st, 1970 causes the internal clock to be set to less than zero, which confuses the device and crashes it.
Another user claims that he inadvertently suffered this bug when he changed the time zone on his iPhone from Bejing back to New York, experiencing the same issue.
One Twitter user says that the device could come back on after 5 hours, while another notes that changing the SIM card could fix the issue, as well. Other users, however, say that it has been longer than 5 hours, some upwards of a day, without the device coming back on. If your device comes back on after 5 hours, expect it to be very laggy, but you should be able to go into Settings and change the date back.
https://twitter.com/mgalicki/status/697840517611069441
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen odd bugs causing iOS devices to crash. Last year, sending a text message with a certain string of Arabic code caused the Messages app to crash and the iPhone to reboot, sometimes continuously. This year, a website emerged that crashes Safari every time you visit it. This date and time bug, however, is unique in that it permanently bricks your device.
We haven’t tested this issue first-hand and we don’t recommend that you do either, as it will likely result in you having to make a trip to the Apple Store to get a new phone. Nevertheless, the video below demonstrates the process:
Thanks Zach!
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So not “forever” then….
but then it wouldn’t be clickbait.
This article should have never been written! Only malicious acts can come of it. :(
Horrible logic there…People need to know in order to protect themselves…
That’s quite a stretch
Like people are going to sit around and play with dat and time settings juts to see what happens?
Protect themselves from what? Who normally would ever set the date/time back to Jan 1, 1970?
You guys are real thinkers…Ever let your friends use your phone? What if someone did this as a “prank” ? Not so funny.
And here it is — on Twitter already:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ca92n6PXIAACzZp.jpg
I can only hope that people read this article and don’t fall for it, but I imagine some will fall victim.
Nevertheless, I stand by what I said. People need to know to protect themselves.
Wonder where the person on Twitter got this idea to spread around…oh wait, right here! 🙄
Haha, I commend people that discover bugs like this reason being that it helps the company develop hot fixes and also for consumers that want to avoid being inconvenienced with things like having to visit the genius bar.. I mean i don’t expect apple to send everybody a pentalope screw driver set..
“This iOS date trick will reportedly brick any device forever [Video]”
Unless you disconnect the battery … or let it drain. So, ya, forever.
You do realize there’s something called Non-Volatile RAM, right? It’s why computers no longer need batteries on their motherboards.
But nonvolatile RAM isn’t used as a replacement for traditional RAM. Yeah, computers still need batteries on their motherboards. Apple calls them the PRAM batteries.
I would presume that any batteries found on a motherboard since the introduction of flash RAM are simply powering the clocks. Anything a manufacturer wants configurable yet non volatile storage would be better served by Flash RAM these days rather than battery backed RAM using batteries that need replacement every so often.
You can unplug the battery, and power the phone back on like normal. It works.
So, draining the battery down and then plugging the unit to recharge the battery will reset it so the device is useful again? If that does, in fact work, maybe that will fix the Error 53 bricking, for the other problems. Has anyone tried this method to reset the unit?
Error 53 is caused by the OS itself checking for a mismatch between the touch ID cable or sensor and the one the phone first came with to see if it has been replaced or tampered with. It bricks itself if it detects a mismatch on purpose. It’s by design (Thanks Apple…). Remote bricking, done by a company without your knowledge, should be illegal IMHO.
That forever is such an exaggeration… I found a fix hours after some kids “bricked” some of our Demo units in the store… Was easy… I just relied on my Jailbreak knowledge and past experience. It’s as easy as updating to latest 9.3beta then going back to 9.2.1…
PurpleRestore could possibly fix it, by wiping the device (truly) completely. But we’re not supposed to know about that.
Unfortunately, PurpleRestore does no good in this case, either.
Seriously, who would know something like that? And why would you even want to do that?
January 1st, 1970 is the basis of Unix Time or Epoch time where all time after that is measured in seconds from midnight on that date.
Jan 1, 1970 is 0 time in Unix from which all milliseconds are counted. The end time is 2038 which will require action in the future.
Setting the time in the future to 2041 would also be an interesting test but not by me since I don’t want to brick it.
So it’s a bizarre overflow bug. I’m glad it was disclosed because it’s probably a one-liner code fix to break out of the infinite loop.
Come on, do it for science!
Unfortunately, time_t is defined as a 32-bit type even on 64-bit UNIXes, because it’s used in network protocols and making it 64 bit would screw up the structure layouts for packets.
Yes, the Unix clock “rolls over” in early 2038… on a 32-bit machine.
On a 64-bit machine like the iPhone, the rollover time is a bit further out.
Try a mother-f’ing crapload further out!
The 64-bit Unix time will cease to function on Sunday, 4 December 292,277,026,596!
I wonder if they will have a work-around before then ^_~
“I’ve been having an issue trying to re produce a hardware issue with my on warranty phone. Think this is worth a shot to try to get a replacement ?”
HAH! That’s from Reddit…I was thinking the same thing…I bet a ton of people would do something like this just to get a new device.
I’m guessing that Apple would just disconnect the battery …
Why would you ever want to change your time to 1970???
From Reddit:
For the second question, it was originally done because there’s a bug that prevented the time from displaying in status bar in iOS 9.3 Beta 3.
Someone tried to work around that problem through self-troubleshooting, then tried to set the date and time way back and see if the bug goes away.
Instead, when he rebooted, the device was bricked. He posted this on the internet, thinking it was a bug in iOS 9.3 Beta 3.
Clearly the writer has a flawed understanding of the term “Brick”. An item that has been bricked means something that is unusable, unfixable, and essentially useless, hence the term referencing a certain building material that is good for little more than having weight and taking up space. An example of something being bricked would be a device that crashed during a firmware update and the only way to fix it is to replace it altogether or replace so many parts, it’s functionally replaced anyways. A bricked device is impossible to repair without replacement by anyone under any circumstances, with the possible exception of the original engineer who created the thing.
I would say, if the device is bricked it is no longer functional as a device, that’s a brick, doesn’t mean the device won’t turn on, or even display something, if it no longer works as its supposed to, then it’s bricked, and as the article mentioned, not even apple can fix it, less replacing the device, so….. bricked
My right ear is lonely!
Just do a DFU Restore…..I doubt this kid even knows what that is…..
It doesn’t resolve the issue… So, no, he won’t “just do” a DFU Restore
“You can put it into DFU and even get iTunes to recognize it to perform a restore, but even after that, it will remain stuck on the boot up screen.” – Chance Miller. You aren’t cool putting ‘kids’ down when you can’t even read the article in the first place. Congratulations.
Who the hell would WANT to set their date to January 1, 1970????
Nobody would want to but there are douche nozzles in this world that would do this to a friend or family member’s phone and laugh about it.
You say that here, but above you wrote “Like people are going to sit around and play with dat and time settings juts to see what happens?”
I guess you realized that AFTER replying? :-x
That is the most common date for a UNIX based device to accidentally get set to if any bug messes up the date, because it’s got the value of zero.
I would laugh if the date was November 5, 1955 that bricks it. Would show the developers had a sense of humor. :)
This falls into the “doctor, it hurts when I do this” category….. hence, don’t do it! Or do we now have date-gate, and the lawyers are getting ready to sue bc I can’t pretend it’s 1970 with my iPhone.
Well so there you go. I set my device and now I have to go to the Apple Store, get a new phone in pristine condition with all the latest versions of things installed on it and I get to come back and restore it to have all my apps etc on it and it was free except for the gas costs, time costs and trip to the store.
Thanks for the tip on how to get a new unscratched phone.
*UGG*
(and NO I didn’t do this, but it’s amazing how some will post anything to make ad revenue. LOL
This is stupid.
Unix 0 day attack? ;)
I wouldn’t even read or watch the video don’t even care to know or want to know how to do this. Stupid is as Stupid does!!!
The past doesn’t like tresspassers!
No matter what a bug like this happens and should be fixed by Apple as fast as possible. Hopefully they will do for the sake of people that want to feel like in the future in the 70’s even if we…Just forget it; ah ah!
The warranty statement should have “For best results avoid doing stupid things.” included in the text. (and yes, I did buy something that had that in the warranty statement.)
I would think the danger of getting a replacement phone here is that the bricked phone still contains all of your data. As soon as a fix does become available, the phone would work again. It would just depend on whose hands it’s in at that time.
This is a pretty big fail by Apple’s testing team.
Observing the results of setting to the 0 milliseconds time (which as others have pointed out this particular time is) should be an obvious test for any QA team.
Ouch. Someone will be getting a bad performance review.
Because the last time you had to set a mobile phones clock was … never? I also don’t buy the user who switched time zones from Beijing to NY. The phone does that automatically. Even IF he did, it would not cause this.
Is this can be because some people are stupid and they will break their phpne? Or they are too smart and they will try to use this trick to get a replacement device from Apple. Either way, it’s not a good move for Apple.
Since you don’t do it, no one else does either. Logic 101. #Fail.
Also the phone doesn’t switch time zones automatically if you have that option turned OFF.
{facepalm}
You are correct — I have worked for hardware mfg’s in the past and with QA, and the idea is to create scripts that test every possible menu choice, every possible UI gesture, etc. The only thing I can think of why they missed it, is because the phone has to be rebooted in order for this to happen — but that is also standard QA…testing boot with every possible value to make sure that all exceptions are handled properly. Negative unix time can actually exist also, to support times and dates before the epoch.
it’s interesting that this bug would exist – BUT i can’t help but wonder, why would anyone be sat messing with their phone and thinking “i wonder what would happen if i randomly rolled back the date to a useless date.”
I don’t even know why tech companies have this function to roll back to such an early date…
It is kinda funny, and annoying at the same time, that kids are in the apple store testing it — i guess it better to try it out on the the ‘try before you buy’ phones instead of on your own phone…lol
What would have been awesome if it was an easter egg in the software and it actually started playing disco music and the screen flashing different colors…lol
but i guess by bricking the phone is like saying “um, i never existed before this date…so i will turn off…”
Jeeze…tons of comments here “Y WOULD SOME1 DO DIS OHMYGURD PPLZ R STOOPIDZ TEE HEEZ”
If you read the Reddit page, there is a bug concerning the date and time display in the latest iOS beta.
A person tried setting the clock back in the hopes that the bug would go away — instead they found it does something much worse.
And the reason people should know about this is so you can protect yourself from having a friend (or enemy?) do this to your phone as a laugh.
for one – 9to5 didnt report about the above… and i am not going to read through many of the same articles…
my friend on the other hand read about it on a different site — the real reason why people keep doing it is because a meme was created saying that if you roll back to this date it will reveal an easter egg that will change the loading icon to the retro design due to it being their 40th anniversary…
But still – it would seem like a strange easter egg – it would make more sense to go back to 1976…so that was the first give away…
And considering many people still continued to do it…yes they are stupid.
When i first saw it, my first thought was “thats too much effort”…my second thought was “why has it only just been discovered?”…my third thought was “i am sure messing around with my phone like that for no apparent reason will just mess it up”
as for knowing about it — people shouldnt have to know about it… it shouldnt exist… there is no need to be able to it back to that date — and apple should have made it so that you cant go past 1969…
But apple didnt implement anything, no coding or restriction etc, because they probably thought no-one would go back to the 1970 because there would be no need to — even to rectify a bug, there is no need to.
Amazing! What is amazing is that this “article” was ever written (what a waste of time and space) and more amazing that anyone cares enough to comment. Whoops! Just noticed this was already said. A bunch of times. Perhaps this will be learning experience for Chance Miller and 9to5.
Or a learning chance for you to learn how to fkn read.
The reason this was found is because there is a BUG in the latest iOS beta concerning the date and time display.
Whilst troubleshooting to get to the root of the bug, a person set their clock back in the hopes that it would fix it…unfortunately, it did not fix the bug, and it did something much worse.
The reason for the article is to alert people, so you can protect yourself against having a “friend” do this to your device.
There…That wasn’t too hard — I know, I did all the thinking for you.
You can thank me later.
It’s been confirmed that when the next day comes, the device will boot normally.
If this is a UNIX thing, I wonder what this does if you try it on a Mac?
Someone told me to do this because of an “easter egg”. Now my phone needs replacement.
If only you would have seen this article beforehand…Tons of people are saying “why is this even an article” — funny, I guess they didn’t have the thought to think about what could happen to innocent people like you! I feel bad, but if you wait a day, it should work again.
I tried following the advice of some by attempting to let the battery drain. It keeps going through a boot loop before out dies. I plug it back in and it goes right back to the loading screen. It is currently dead with the charger image. Is there something I’m doing wrong. Does anyone have any success
You actually tried the 1970 trick?!
Just put your phone in recovery mode, connect your device to your computer. Once connected, hold down both the Power button and the Home button at the same time, up to 20 seconds, until you see a USB cord and iTunes logo appear on your device screen. This will be Recovery Mode. Wait until it says recovery mode on iTunes
Have you found a solution? I had a friend of mine do this to me an now my phone is in the same state. its currently on but its still on the apple boot mode. I’ve turned it off 2 times now and i try to power it up again but no luck. Have you found a solution? Thanks in advance.
If your comfortable enough with opening your iPhone up, just remove the connection of the battery and your good
If you do that, you are a idiot.
Well shiat, there goes my plans to set my date back to exactly 1/1/70. What am I supposed to do now? Oh yea leave my time and date alone like always.
what would happen if you put the phone in DFU mode and then tried to restore?
You can fix the hack if you do decide to do this.. Just put your phone into recovery mode and it will reset your iPhone :)
Reminds me of the Y2k problems:
http://users.tpg.com.au/users/aoaug/2000bug.html
1 Jan 1970 is the “start date” for Unix systems and C.
Virtual time travel, much like replacing your own iPhone screen is a potential security risk. The bricking is a feature.
I just had it plugged into my computer with itunes open and put it in DFU mode
Really stupid .. who on earth would change the date on his phone ?
Easy fix, fastest vid, pause n read takes 5 min to fix. i fixed my iphone 6 last night. then made this to help others https://youtu.be/rdTi3A3roNY
I fixed my kids iPhone 6! First thing to do is put it in reset mode. hold the power and home at the same time for 10 seconds then only hold the home screen. this places the phone in reset mode. I left it on with the black screen and Apple logo. the phone gets very hot, so I laid it in a cold wrap and left it to die. Once the battery was completely dead, I plugged it into a wall charger until full. Then went to turn it on and it works. It starts up as a new phone, with the Hello screen. Good luck!
what id i set the date to 1970 jan. 1st but i didnt reboot. after that i set the time back to normal (automatic) do i have to fear?
Bugs bugs bugs and more bugs. Typical Apple quality.
Just disconnect the battery for 10 seconds. Worked for me, found out from SmartPhoneMedic on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHMSrMm6UA
It’s so simple for Apple to prevent this from happen. Just stop allowing the date to travel past 2000 like Samsung and you are good.
So my plans to time travel back to the groovy 60s and wow my new shagadellic friends by being able to get the current news on my CNN app is just not going to happen is it. :-(
Here is the fix for 1970 iPhone bug
http://www.careiphone.com/dont-set-iphone-date-to-1970-will-brick-iphone-fix-1970-iphone-bug/
i accidentally bricked my phone
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Those who are making fun of those that did, aren’t really helping. In my case, my idiot husband did it. He now needs the number to a homeless shelter (not really). I have an appt at the Apple Store tonight. I have to drive 100 miles. I don’t mind, but before I drive up there tonight, I want some kind of guarantee they are going to fix it. Has anyone actually been able to fix it?
it is fixable by resetting the battery.
I found an easier fix for 1970 iOS bug. As easy as restoring https://t.co/IFB4rCPagh
I tried it. The date actually goes as far back as December 31, 1969 and it did not brick the phone. I tried this on a iphone 4s 16gb with IOS9 installed.