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Question

Unix Formatter Error

  • December 20, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 10 views
P

 

Hey guys! Is anyone else experiencing this error with the Epoch & Unix Timestamp Conversion in the Formatter? As you see above, the countdown suddenly did not work even though nothing has changed in how we coded our Zap. We have also identified that it might be that extra “.0” in the converted format. Initially it was formatted like this: <t:1735119720:R> in the formatter but that extra .0 is what’s causing the error. 

 

 

Did this topic help you find an answer to your question?

3 replies

ken.a
Forum|alt.badge.img+6
  • ken.aZapier Staff
  • Zapier Staff
  • 6423 replies
  • December 20, 2024

Hi ​@PaulRed04,

It looks like you’ve reached out to our Support Team about this and they replied today with a suggestion. I’ll share details of the suggestion here in case it’s helpful:

I appreciate your patience and understand the urgency of the situation. It appears that an update in Zapier's Unix timestamp format might be causing the countdown timer in Discord to malfunction. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
 
Currently, it seems like the system is not correctly reading the .0 at the end of the Unix timestamp. As a workaround, you may want to consider using Code by Zapier to fix the Unix format.
 
Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can do this:
 
1. Open your Zapier dashboard and find the Zap causing the issue.
2. Add a new action in the Zap by clicking on the + button.
3. Search for 'Code by Zapier' in the action search box and select it.
4. Select 'Run Python' or 'Run Javascript', depending on your preference.
5. In the 'Input Data' field, input the Unix timestamp you want to format.
6. Write a code to format the Unix timestamp as needed. 
7. Test the action to ensure it works correctly before turning on the Zap.
 
You can ask ChatGPT to make a code or use the generate AI button in the Code step.
 
In addition, you can refer to this guide for more detailed instructions: https://zapier.com/blog/code-by-zapier-guide/
 
I hope that helps; if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.

If you’ve got any questions regarding their suggestion it would be best to continue the conversation with them over email. If you can’t locate their reply I’d recommend searching your spam/junk folder or searching your inbox for any emails from zapier.com in case. Sometimes their emails can end up in the spam/junk folder by accident.

M
  • manuelr
  • New
  • 1 reply
  • December 20, 2024

​@ken.a Will this change be getting reverted anytime soon? It is causing a ton of issues on my side as well. A ton of my critical zaps are failing. Some of those are already at 100 step mark and the solution above won’t work to resolve it since I can’t add more than 100 steps.

SamB
Community Manager
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  • SamBCommunity Manager
  • Community Manager
  • 7547 replies
  • December 23, 2024

Hi ​@PaulRed04 and ​@manuelr! 👋

I just checked this in one of my own Zaps and Formatter was able to correctly convert the date:
9c818e4f3b4ed1709ab464f686d34bae.png

d665e4818365e7f4d340c747c8b8572b.png

There was no “.0” appearing at the end of the timestamp:

d16e66c90f9c18b7e3f6c14f1011890e.png

And it displayed correctly in Discord:

 6faca2428a3f0a39636a31eb08807077.png

Is it still adding .0 at the end of the timestamp value generated by that Formatter action?

If so, or if it appears to be adding the .0 intermittently then a code step could be used to update the timestamp. Or if you don’t want to use a Code step, you could add an additional Formatter (Text > Replace) action to remove the .0 part:

2d058fd272595699ad63afa47792a625.png
Then update the Discord action to select that value from that Formatter action instead. That should ensure that if .0 was added it will be removed, and in cases where no .0 was added the second Formatter action will pass over the timestamp value as is.

​@PaulRed04 - can you give adding that additional Formatter or Code action a try and let us know how you get on?

​@manuelr - as the alternative approach outlined above is an extra step it won’t do much good if your Zap is already at 100 steps. Instead of adding an additional Code action you could replace the existing Formatter action with a Code action that generates the necessary time in Unix format—this should keep the number of action steps in your Zap(s) exactly the same. Alternatively, if you’d like to share some screenshots of the trigger and actions within the Zap(s) I’d be happy to take a look to see if there’s anything that can be done to help streamline things a bit so you don’t need so may action steps. 

Looking forward to hearing from you both!

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