Symfyony is throwing DateTime Parse Error

I'm trying to get created_at field from database table but it's throwing the below error:

Internally stored date/time/timestamp value could not be converted to DateTime: '
Cook
' [wrapped: DateTime::__construct(): Failed to parse time string (
Cook
) at position 0 (<): Unexpected character]

Code for fetching date:

foreach ($pager->getResults() as $row):
         ?>
        <tr>
          <td><?php echo $row->getTitle()  ?></td>
          <td><?php echo ($row->getStatus()) ? 'Active' : 'Inactive' ?></td>
          <td><?php echo date(sfConfig::get('app_display_alternate_format_for_date'), strtotime($row->getCreatedAt())) ?></td>
          <td>
          </td>
        </tr>

Config for Date:

'app_display_alternate_format_for_date' => 'M-d-Y'

Date save in DB format:

2017-09-15 08:08:02

Base getCreatedAt function at BaseModel:

public function getCreatedAt($format = 'Y-m-d H:i:s')
    {
        if ($this->created_at === null) {
            return null;
        }


        if ($this->created_at === '0000-00-00 00:00:00') {
            // while technically this is not a default value of NULL,
            // this seems to be closest in meaning.
            return null;
        } else {
            try {
                $dt = new DateTime($this->created_at);
            } catch (Exception $x) {
                throw new PropelException("Internally stored date/time/timestamp value could not be converted to DateTime: " . var_export($this->created_at, true), $x);
            }
        }

        if ($format === null) {
            // Because propel.useDateTimeClass is TRUE, we return a DateTime object.
            return $dt;
        } elseif (strpos($format, '%') !== false) {
            return strftime($format, $dt->format('U'));
        } else {
            return $dt->format($format);
        }
    }

Solution

First, the exception looks like it finds the string Cook in the field. I'd var_dump($this->created_at);exit; a line before the new DateTime($this->created_at) to exclude this possibility.

Once you're confident this is not the case, try giving the format of the string. Instead of new DateTime() use:

$dt = date_create_from_format('Y-m-d H:i:s', $this->created_at);

or, better:

$dt = date_create_from_format($format, $this->created_at);