http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3875096d6827.htm

At work, we live and die by UNIX machines, and communicate via e-mail almost exclusively. As it turns out, the version of ELM we have at work isn't quite Y2K compliant. (ELM is a very common UNIX mail client.)

All mail clients "datestamp" the mail when you send it; well, ELM thoughtfully stamps mail sent after 1/1/2000 with the year "100". When the recipient of the mail has their inbox set to sort by date, the incoming elm-sent mail gets filed back with the earliest mail you have ever recieved.

This has hit me personally, as I missed several critical mails sent by co-workers and superiors at work (who all use elm). My project has been set back about 3 days - not the worst problem in the world, but in the Silicon Valley, every second counts....

Here are the particulars. The buggy mail came from ELM, version 2.4 PL23, Solaris binary.

Just as I was writing this post, I checked another account I have, and saw a version of ELM that wasn't affected: v2.4ME+ PL38 (35), x86 FreeBSD binary.

So, UNIX using FReepers, test out ELM (and all your other mail systems) - especially if you and your organization rely on UNIX for computing and e-mail for communication! Get the sysadmin to test it as well!

(Brought to you by the Committee to Justify the Huge Spending on the Y2K Bug)

-- Helium (Heliumavid@yahoo.com), January 06, 2000

Answers

CJHS-y2k Gets my vote for a new forum name. Pam

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), January 06, 2000.

Those of us who have multiple e-mail accounts can run into this kind of problem...especially when we work on several platforms, as well.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 06, 2000.

Pine

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 06, 2000.

Just spoke to a client yesterday who was running Exchange 4.0 (an old version). Seems all outgoing mail was deemed 'expired' and promptly deleted. Only took a few hours to install the latest upgrade but they did lose some messages.

Just another paper cut...

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), January 06, 2000.

Sorry Above post sounds like a Polly. Not true--even found out how to power tractor post-y2k TEOTWAWKI. Just thought the "committee" was funny. Think plenty of "justification" will be apparent very soon. Pam

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), January 06, 2000.

"It's not a Y2K problem," Cantrell said. "It's a 'this system is unacceptable' problem."

-- Beached Whale (beached_whale@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.