Skip to main content

RangeError: invalid date

The JavaScript exception "invalid date" occurs when an invalid date is attempted to be converted to an ISO date string.

Message​

RangeError: Invalid time value (V8-based)
RangeError: invalid date (Firefox)
RangeError: Invalid Date (Safari)

Error type​

{{jsxref("RangeError")}}

What went wrong?​

You are converting an invalid date value to an ISO date string. This usually happens in one of three ways:

  • Calling the {{jsxref("Date/toISOString", "toISOString()")}} method
  • Calling the {{jsxref("Date/toJSON", "toJSON()")}} method, which implicitly calls toISOString
  • Using {{jsxref("JSON.stringify()")}} to stringify the date, which implicitly calls toJSON

An invalid date is produced when you attempt to parse an invalid date string, or set the timestamp to an out-of-bounds value. Invalid dates usually cause all date methods to return {{jsxref("NaN")}} or other special values. However, such dates do not have valid ISO string representations, so an error is thrown when you attempt to do so.

Examples​

Invalid cases​

const invalid = new Date("nothing");
invalid.toISOString(); // RangeError: invalid date
invalid.toJSON(); // RangeError: invalid date
JSON.stringify({ date: invalid }); // RangeError: invalid date

However, most other methods return special values:

invalid.toString(); // "Invalid Date"
invalid.getDate(); // NaN

For more details, see the {{jsxref("Date.parse()")}} documentation.

Valid cases​

new Date("05 October 2011 14:48 UTC").toISOString(); // "2011-10-05T14:48:00.000Z"
new Date(1317826080).toISOString(); // "2011-10-05T14:48:00.000Z"

See also​

  • {{jsxref("Date.prototype.parse()")}}
  • {{jsxref("Date.prototype.toISOString()")}}