Date being converted to an invalid date automatically by system

Katie A · ‎10-18-2016

Hello, We are having issues with the ServiceNow date formats in our dev instance.

The system automatically converts the date format to include the timezone string "EDIT" at the end and this prevents from being able to save records.

Example:

2016-10-18 16:23:12 --> Was changed by the system automatically --> 2016-10-18 00:00:00 EDT

Steps to reproduce:

Open an existing or new incident and assign it to Service Desk

Put in a date in the "Due Date field"

The system strips off the time, and adds the timezone "EDT" at the end of the date.

The date then fails validation with "Invalid Date".

This was strange since it started happening randomly today on our Dev instance. I was working on something unrelated and did not make any changes to the date configuration.

HugoFirst · ‎10-18-2016

Check the date format string in system properties -> system.

If it contains anything other than hypens, slashes, D's, M' and Y's remove it.

Especially any z.

EDIT: I was mistaken. Though the z could appear in the date field, it is usually used in the time format string.

Check that out. A possible use is:

HH:mm:ss z

While that formats the time and appends a timezone, in some cases, a user cannot update the record.

We noticed that if the timezone had a 4 character abbreviation, then a record would not update.

Your example shows a 3 character timezone. So you might be hitting on something else.

Katie A · ‎10-19-2016

Thanks. The date and time format look correct and I haven't changed any date settings recently.

HugoFirst · ‎10-20-2016

Are you still having the problem? Have you contacted ServiceNow for help?

The only strategy I can propose ( beyond contacting S/N ) is to make changes the time format and confirm that the property is being used to determine the format.

If changing the date and time format property results in different time formats being displayed, and changing it back to yyyy-MM-DD does not yield the result you expect.

You may have to contact S/N.

If it does NOT change the format of the you the time and date being displayed, I would then experiment with the date and time formats in your user record in sys_user. Does changing either of those properties result in different formats being displayed? If so, then set the value of your personal formats to "System(....)".

This essentially blanks them out. Now the format of both date and time should be governed by the system properties.

Paul Ciarfella · ‎10-21-2016

I have the same problem being reported by one of our users on IE 11 / Windows 7. He said that when it happens, all date/time fields on the form are like this. And he's the only one that has reported the error (we've got over 400 active users).

I cannot reproduce the issue, even when impersonating the user. I thought that I had fixed it a few weeks ago by setting the timezone in his profile - it seemed to work and now its back again.

BTW this is on Geneva patch 6.