Year 2038 Problem

From OPC Labs Knowledge Base

Date last updated: April 5, 2025

We have reviewed OPC Labs products for susceptibility to Year 2038 problem. The review has been made on the current version (2024.2) of OPC Studio products (QuickOPC, OPC Wizard, Excel Connector)

We have found no explicit usage of signed 32-bit integer with Unix epoch for time representation in OPC Studio source code. OPC Studio products depend, however, on an environment it runs in. Specifically, this includes:

  • the operating system (Windows, Linux, or MacOS), and
  • the .NET runtime (.NET Framework, or "new" .NET).

You need to use the resources available for the actual operating system and .NET runtime to assess whether the system, in its entirety, will not have a year 2038 issue. Generally speaking, Windows systems do not use the problematic time representation and are thus better off. Older Linux systems have the year 2038 problem. As for .NET runtimes, we have found no related statement from Microsoft for .NET Framework. For "new" .NET, the Y2038 compatibility seems to depend on the combination of the actual .NET version, and Linux version and processor architecture. In general .NET 9 appears to be Y2038 compatible.

As of date of this article, no actual test results (simulating current date of year 2038 and over) are available.

We make no statement about earlier versions of the software. Customers with past versions are advised to upgrade to version 2024.2 or later, in order to benefit from the review results stated above.

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