Cortana Bug - Try asking her the date - What does she say?

[astondg]

This seems like the kind of ridiculous stuff that's limited by region. This query also doesn't work for me in Australia (although I get a Bing search rather than 'cannot connect').

I can't think of a reason that would stop them rolling out the US 'what is the date?' functionality to other English speaking regions (obviously using the OS regionalisation for formatting the date and time), but they still withhold it. And the features they do regionalise often end up less useful to me than using the in-regionalised versions (i.e. setting my phone to US region). It frustrates me that I get a better, more useful, Cortana experience by setting my devices regions to US (i.e. without any of Micosoft's special regionalisations for me) than leaving them as Australia with the only exception being relevant 'local' News articles. But doing that screws up the rest of the phone experience (OS date & time formatting, in-app formats for date, time & units, content from video, music & app stores, etc.).

 

[Rinsun]

"tell me today's date" also works for me.

It may be Regional.

"Tell me today's date" also doesn't work in India ,same "cannot connect at the moment ,try again in a little bit " answer.
However on asking the time she gives the visual of a clock and voice answer of correct time and my city both on laptop and phone.

 

[speccy]

Same here in UK, can't connect when asked for the date, but responds properly to other queries/commands immediately before and after. L950 running latest RS2 build.

 

[Jcmg62]

I can't speak for every global version of Cortana (I believe she's quite good in the USA) but the United Kingdom version is as dumb as a doorknob licking spastic donkey with a brain tumour.

There are about 20 questions you can ask the UK version that she actually responds to with an answer. The rest defaults to a bing web search. It is literally about 1597% faster to type your search in rather than ask Cortana a question.

Mega Frustration 1 / Productivity 0

Cortana has been out for around 2 years. I'd love to say I can't wait to see what the next 2 years will bring, but then I remind myself that this is Microsoft we're talking about. The same crowd who have had 6 long years (or, put another way about 3 lifetimes in the technology world) to put together a decent phone and stick some decent software on it and still haven't achieved either of those goals.

The Wright Brothers perfected flying in less time than MS needs to make their stuff work properly

 

[gwinegarden]

Tried both questions and, in each case, she told me what time it is

Then I said "what's today" and she gave me the correct answer.

 

[Snaffie]

Interesting replies so far. Thank you so much to everyone who has tried this and replied to my original posting on this issue.
To be honest, I was unaware there were Country specific differences. Of course, I would not expect American Taxi Fare info given to me in the UK, but I would have thought something as generic as "What's the date today" would be in some "world-wide" generic set of replies that was not specific to anywhere.

Things like this always puzzle me.
I can of course always understand bugs and issues that people find deep deep down, under special circumstances that the developers may not have stumbled across, but something so fundamental not working, I simply don't understand.

Anyone Pre-Launch, just sitting down for 1 hour to test it, would find these type of things.

 

[Matty]

One of the most basic and fundamental questions a person may ask cortana is what's the date.

So let's try it.

"what's the date today"

I can't connect at the moment, try again in a little bit.

"What's todays date"

I can't connect at the moment, try again in a little bit.

How is this even possible that such a simple, basic fundamental question makes Cortana say she cannot connect?

I may be wrong here, but in order to save space, Cortana saves the voice message and sends it to online servers for 'interpretation' and then replies. Maybe she/he is trying to access your location? which requires an internet connection

 

[RumoredNow]

I may be wrong here, but in order to save space, Cortana saves the voice message and sends it to online servers for 'interpretation' and then replies. Maybe she/he is trying to access your location? which requires an internet connection

Nicely spotted.

Yes, check Location settings.

 

[Bobvfr]

My settings are all set to UK, luckily this is where I live, but there is obviously a bug in the UK version of Cortana.

 

[Rinsun]

Nicely spotted.

Yes, check Location settings.

Location and internet were on when I asked.
Cortana gives correct answers to all other questions including time.

 

[Aamir Mustafa]

There are few problems in Cortana. For example when I ask for my city weather it shows my province weather not my city weather even I have added my city into Cortana notebook.

 

[themad95]

Same here. Didn't give me the date though.

 

[Snaffie]

I may be wrong here, but in order to save space, Cortana saves the voice message and sends it to online servers for 'interpretation' and then replies. Maybe she/he is trying to access your location? which requires an internet connection

Nope that's not it.

I just asked "What's the weather today"

She displayed the correct info for my exact location for my weather

I then asked "what's the date today"

She replied "I can't connect at the moment, try again in a little bit"

Without doubt this is screwed up...... What's amazing is, it's like this, and they are not fixing such a simple/basic/fundamental issue as what's the date.