DateTime + Timespan no longer working in UE5 😠 (works in UE4)

[MisterPixel (Pixel's Laboratory)]

Hi, there!

As always, if anyone wants to check the video version of my explanation, feel free to do so, otherwise continue reading on after the YouTube thumbnail:

DateTime + Timespan no longer working in UE5 😠 (works in UE4)

So, the UE4 documentation shows to have vast support for nodes that allow for DateTime and Timespan operations, such as the very obvious example of shifting a DateTime to a later one by adding a Timespan chunk on top of it. Here’s one such doc page for the Add operator, but many more can be found one level up. Now try doing the same under the UE5 documentation and you’ll get a nice Error 404 - Page Not Found, as upon closer inspection we can see that all those operator nodes are now gone.

So, I thought to myself: surely the nodes are missing from the UE5 docs because now we have those generic wildcard operators like the “Add”, “Subtract”, “Multiply”, “Divide” etc., which can now be customized to have different types as their Inputs and Outputs. And indeed, you can drag such a node in your Blueprint and customize it accordingly, BUT here’s where it all goes south: you can no longer connect the nodes If you connect the DateTime Input and DateTime Output first, you’ll think to yourself “ah, just on more node and I’m done”, but as soon as you try connecting the other Timespan Input, the previously-connected DateTime nodes will be automatically disconnected, as the “Add” operator node decides to convert itself from a “DateTime + Timespan = DateTime” node to a “Timespan + Timespan = Timespan” node and there’s no way around it apparently

I tried multiple workarounds such as splitting the structs, working with variables, making/breaking DateTimes and/or Timespans, but to no avail Therefore, please let me know if you have any idea how to do this properly, as it seems extremely stupid to no longer be able to add a Timespan on top of a DateTime. It’s one of the core reasons for why Timespan exist, otherwise they’re not that useful by themselves if they can not operate in conjunction with DateTime…

Thanks a bunch!!!

[Everynone]

There’s a small bunch of timespan / datetime bugs in UE5, here’s one:

The Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker

The ones i’ve seen have a target fix for 5.3. And yes, it’s a regression indeed.

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These are apparently fixed in 5.3:

The Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker

See if you can find the relevant stuff. Have a look here for more details:

Unreal Engine 5.3 Preview

[image] Download Unreal Engine 5.3 Preview from the Epic Games launcher, GitHub, or for Linux! Unreal Engine 5.3 continues to refine the workflows and capabilities of its core features, such as Lumen, Nanite, Path Tracing, and beyond. With this release, these rendering features provide more control over performance and yield better-looking results. Users will see reductions in build times with Multi-process Cook, improving the ability to iterate more quickly on projects. There are also a n…

[MisterPixel (Pixel's Laboratory)]

@Everynone Yep, it’s a bug and I’ve submitted an issue for all of the nodes, as there are exactly 20x UE4 nodes missing from UE5 at the moment with respect to DateTime and Timespan operations. Here’s a screenshot of all of them:

Therefore, in case anyone else has this issue, I’ve compiled all of those nodes, with nice comments, as a .txt file, so you can use it in UE5 directly:

DateTime_Timespan_UE4_Nodes.txt (60.9 KB)

Just open it, copy the contents and then paste it into your UE5 BP graph and you’ll have all of them there. Feel free to keep this handy as an easy container from where you can get them later, just in case you need to OR, you can use this online BlueprintUE.com version I made, just in case you find it more accessible:

DateTime & Timespan UE4 Nodes missing from UE5 posted by Mister Pixel |...

But I won’t mark this thread as resolved just yet, as this is only my patch… I’m still waiting for EpicGames to solve this issue properly by bringing these nodes back (in the docs also) with proper functionality.

[MisterPixel (Pixel's Laboratory)]

Here’s the reply I got back for my issue submission on this topic:

The issue in UE-175959 has been fixed internally and is expected to be available in the 5.3 release.

If you are a source code developer using Github, you can already access and integrate the fix here: 25373061 .

So, it appears there’s yet another bug submission already present under the ID of UE-175959, which indeed appears to be marked as fixed in the upcoming v5.3! Therefore I’m eagerly awaiting to see it resolved in the stable release, then if all goes well, I’ll close the topic

[MisterPixel (Pixel's Laboratory)]

So, UE5.3 is here and guess what… it’s not fixed The same problem occurs, just as before. What’s worse is that they even flagged UE-175959 as being fixed, when is completely opposite from the observable reality