And rounding up the dreaded SMS-2016 issue, whereby SMS messages come dated from the year 2016, is Palm with a nice patch for their CDMA Treo Pros on Sprint and Alltel.

The patch is a simple .cab file.  Just download, install and soft-reset and you should be good to go.

For those who want direct links to the .cabs, here you go.  Just click and download:

• Sprint patch
• Alltel  patch

Or browse to Palm's support page for Sprint or Alltel for more information.

[Thanks, lunigma, for noticing!]

Y'all remember that 2016-SMS timestamp bug we discussed a few weeks ago? The one that caused all incoming text messages to be dated from the year 2016?

Well, good news as HTC has released patches for Telus, US Cellular and Alltel users (Sprint got theirs last week; not a peep though from Verizon yet).

Telus

• Diamond
• Touch Pro
• Touch Pro 2

Alltel

• Touch Pro
• Diamond (n/a)

US Cellular

• Touch Pro 2
• Touch Pro (n/a)

Remember, these don't play too well with custom ROMs, so best to stick with the 'Ziggy' patch.  

Sure, this was an unfortunate bug, but three to four weeks isn't too bad for an official patch, we suppose...we mean in comparison to where we were a few years ago (Anyone remember the Sprint 700wx SMS debacle? That was like a 6 month wait!)

[Thanks to Gregory P for the Telus tip!]

Well, it was leaked yesterday and HTC briefly had it up, then pulled it, leaving us in a tizzy.

Evidently though, today is the day to grab the "official" fix for the dreaded future-SMS bug, whereby SMS messages were coming dated from the year 2016, coinciding with the New Year (see our epic earlier coverage for full context).

This fix updates rilphone.dll, which is the key component that interacts with Sprint's SMS server.  In that sense, it is different from the "ziggy" patch, which simply enabled a function that time-dated received messages using your device's clock.

If you are happy with the current "ziggy" patch, there is no immediate necessity to download this patch.  Then again, some prefer to have their SMS messages dated by the server, not their device, so this update makes sense.

What about Verizon, U.S. Cellular and others? No word yet, but we'll keep an eye out.  Also, no word on the Sprint Snap either.

Get the updates here:

Touch Pro 2

Touch Pro

Touch Diamond

[Thanks to all who sent this in]

If you're the kind of person who just has to wait for official fixes to come out, well, fine. We understand. And official fixes are starting to trickle out for the 2016 SMS bug that we helped bring to light.

HTC has hotfixes for the Sprint Touch Diamond and Touch Pro that in all liklihood do the exact same thing our workaround does. But if you need the HTC stamp of approval, well, here you go.

Edit: The links to the CAB files are being squirrley, so just use the ones above.

Edit 2: Odd. Now the HTC pages are borked. Hang in there, guys.

The saga of the Year 2016 text message bug continues. While there's not an official fix as of yet we, do have a workaround (download here). And we just received an official statement from a Microsoft spokesperson:

“Microsoft is aware of reports that phone messages received after 1/1/2010 may be dated 2016. These reports have not yet resulted in widespread customer inquiries; however, we are working closely with our manufacturing and mobile operator partners to investigate the cause and correct the issue as appropriate.”

So, they're on it. Sort of. Hopefully we'll see an official patch soon.

In other news, just heard that this sort of bug is affecting not just cell phones. Philip tells us:

The bug is also affecting EFTPOS terminals in Australia. Retail stores can't charge transactions to customer's credit cards, because the EFTPOS terminal thinks the data is 2016 and therefore the customer's card is considered expired.

Everybody into the bomb shelters.

Anyone wake up from their hangover in the year 2016?

Seems a new bug has afflicted our phones today: text messages come dated six years from now.

So unless something really weird happened last night, we're seeing a nasty bug in our little gizmos.  Here's what we know as of now:

• Messages received after 1/1/2010 may be dated as 2016
• Effects WM6.1, WM6.5 and even non-Windows Mobile phones
• It is ROM independent, meaning switching won't help
• All Some carriers seem to be experiencing this bug, but T-Mobile seems fine
• HTC and LG are aware, but no official response yet

We'll keep updating this story as more information comes along!  Please tell us your experience in comments and give device/OS/carrier info too.

Update 1: Interesting coincidence noticed by Subzero1312?  Today's date 010110 is binary for 16 (hex)

Update 2: Adam Z. Lein (Pocketnow.com) has noted his T-Mo TP2 is unaffected as is Phil's Moto Droid. The plot thickens.

Update 3.5: It's fixed! A temporary workaround has been found:  Download this .cab and give a thanks to Ziggy471 & Scientific for working on this issue!  We still need an "official" patch from HTC, LG, etc. on this issue, but for now, the above trick will work.  The Ziggy patch works by using your device time instead of the SMS gateway server to record time sent.

Update 4:  Added a MS Tag option for direct download too.  Also, follow the technical discussion at Slashdot as to why this happened.

[thanks, CFay, for the tip!]