27070 - JavaScript Year 2038 Cookie Bug

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Core :: Networking: Cookies, defect, P3)

Description

[Keith Bowes]

When a JavaScript cookie's expire date is any time after January 18, 2038, it
won't store between sessions.

To see this bug in action, go to my homepage (the URL above).  The cookie, set
in the left frame, is set to expire January 19, 2038- the day that the bug
starts.  If you set it to an earlier date, it strores;  a later date, it doesn't
store.

I've tested this on the build ids 2000012520 and 2000020608 on Windows 98.

Comment 1

[Steven de Hoog]

*** Bug 27072 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2

[Stephen P. Morse]

This is a consequence of the way we are storing the time.  We store it as the 
number of seconds since January 1, 1970.  It is stored in a variable of type 
time_t which is a signed 32-bit integer.  The maximum value that can be stored 
is approximately 2 billion seconds or 68 years.  Hence the upper limit of year 
2038.

This is not a new bug but rather the way netscape browsers (and probably others 
as well) have always behaved.  Your cookie would not be set correctly in the 4.7 
browser if it could display your page but 4.7 can't even get that far (it 
reports a JS error on your page).

We have no plans on changing this implementation and so I have to mark this as 
wont-fix.  Others would argue that you should never be setting cookies so far in 
the future (see bug 8530).

Comment 3

[Tom Everingham]

verified wontfix

Comment 4

[Jonadab the Unsightly One (Nathan Eady)]

Note also bug 187254, the less-severe Linux equivalent.

> This is not a new bug

No, of course it's not new.

> Others would argue that you should never be setting cookies
> so far in the future (see bug 8530).

That should be (and is these days) up to the user's prefs, but
2038 won't be distant forever.  (Granted, there are some years
before this gets critical, and it may fix itself for free in the
meanwhile.)

Comment 5

[xo]

Can this be reviewed again as it should really be fixed.