Recurring date seems to be everywhere in Mac OS 10.5?!

[drspa44]

I'm having a hard-to-explain problem. It seems that the date 05/01/2008 is everywhere. I bought my imac in June of 2008 and I don't recall having this problem before. I'm a British user, so my iMac should be set at DD/MM/YYYY. I don't know whether this refers to a day in January or May. I wouldn't know where to search on the internet to see if a certain application or malware causes this glitch, but I thought someone on the forums might know.

A few recurrences of 05/01/2008 include:

All of the podcasts in my iTunes including Apple Keynotes, Quick Tips, Will it Blend and MacFormat have a release date of 05/01/2008

In System Profiler, below the titlebar, there is [my name]'s iMac and to the right the date 05/01/2008 18:26. Does anyone know what this date is a reference to? Could this be the day it was made?


I tried searching for files made on that day, but Find... didn't let me enter in a date in the field!

Just for the record, I'm running 10.5.6 on a 2.4ghz iMac - the one released before the latest refresh. I'm quite new to these forums, so please tell me if I'm posting in the wrong place.

 

[drspa44]

I've just noticed that all of my logs in Apple System Profiler have a "last modified" date of 05/01/2008, but with different times during the day.

 

[eluk]

…
In System Profiler, below the titlebar, there is [my name]'s iMac and to the right the date 05/01/2008 18:26. Does anyone know what this date is a reference to? Could this be the day it was made?
…

This should be today's date. Check your clock setting.

 

[drspa44]

Thanks for the reply. Although the time is correct in the system profiler, the date is wrong and "Date & Time" in SysPrefs shows the correct date and time. Unchecking the set automatically option doesn't seem to make any difference either.

I hope there isn't something wrong with the pram or internal clock. I have TechTool Pro 4 and it doesn't detect anything wrong with the clock.

Read Register Check

This test checks the clock circuitry output by requesting several thousand read commands and verifying the contents.

Write Register Check

This test checks the clock circuitry input by sending several thousand write commands and verifying that the contents of the clock registers contain what was sent by the program.

Passed

I'm totally baffled!

 

[drspa44]

I've just noticed that many of my 3rd party apps are reporting false times.

From Apimac Timer: version checking was last run at 21:08 on 05/01/2008

The version I'm using was made after that date. Something's really messed up with my internal clock or logic board or whatever!!??

 

[Ashka]

System Prefs: Date & Time
Date & Time ~ check
Time Zone & closest city ~ check
Clock settings ~ check.

System Prefs: International ~ Monday 5 Jan 2009 used.
Language > edit list > British English at the top ~ English (USA) second.
Formats ~ Region ~ check
Dates ~ check & customise if necessary
Times ~ ditto
Numbers, currency & Measurements units ~ ditto

S

 

[drspa44]

System Prefs: Date & Time
Date & Time ~ Set to Apple Europe time server. Date and time here is perfect
Time Zone & closest city ~ London is selected (I live in London)
Clock settings ~ The only non-default here is that the computer reads the time on the hour.

System Prefs: International
Language > edit list > British English at the top ~ English (USA) second. Done
Formats ~ Region ~ Now this is very odd. It's been set on Custom and the dates all show 5/1/09 apart from the last which is 5/1/08 (the troublesome date). However, they all appear 5/1/09 if UK is selected. I've put it in an attachment.

The others are fine.

Thanks very much. I think the problem has been sourced! Do you think changing the region to United Kingdom will solve the problem? Logically though, this would only replace all occurrences of 5/1/08 with 5/1/09.

 

[miles01110]

Thanks very much. I think the problem has been sourced! Do you think changing the region to United Kingdom will solve the problem? Logically though, this would only replace all occurrences of 5/1/08 with 5/1/09.

Doesn't hurt to try, does it?

 

[drspa44]

Thanks. Everything is back to normal now.

I didn't do it right away just in case I made it worse! Thanks again