Date not appearing in custom query

Question

I'm having a weird issue with Wordpress which I cannot solve by myself, and for which I couldn't find an aswer over this and other websites.

Basically, I have a custom loop.

while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) : $the_query->the_post(); ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to    <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<?php the_post_thumbnail('featured'); ?></a>
<div class="datetitle">
<div class="dateonly"><?php the_date('d.m.Y'); ?></div>
<div class="titleonly"><?php    the_title(); ?></div>
</div>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<? wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

If I then create another custom query similar to this one, or even if i just duplicate this query further down my page, I don't get the php the_date to return any value! this is the strangest thing... what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

See the_date() in WordPress Codex for an explanation:

SPECIAL NOTE: When there are multiple posts on a page published under the SAME DAY, the_date() only displays the date for the first post (that is, the first instance of the_date()). To repeat the date for posts published under the same day, you should use the Template Tag the_time() or get_the_date() (since 3.0) with a date-specific format string. Use <?php the_time(get_option('date_format')); ?> to add the date set in the admin interface.