Very Strange Date Behaviour

[LISpeedyG]

Hi,
I am a new user of your software. Recently downloaded the most recent version 6.16a.

My task is to syncronize folders/files residing on a local NAS (HP Media Vault) to an FTP site. The Goal is to Mirror the contents from the NAS to the FTP site including date stamps.

I am seeing some strange behavior both in your software as well as differentials using Win7/Server2008 R2 vs. XP, i.e., the file dates reported by both your SFFS as well as XP is exactly 1hr less than when viewing the file properties with either Win7 or Server2008 R2.

Could someone please give me some direction on where to begin understanding the problem so that we cna resolve the differentials..

Thank You,
Gus

[superflexible]

That is normal. Due to daylight saving time differences, there is no universally defined way to display times from the other half of the year. One hour difference should always be considered normal, and our program can handle that. In other words, it will not re-copy such files. The settings for that can be found on the Comparison tab sheet.

[LISpeedyG]

Hi again..
Thanks for your respons.. But, this does not make sense to me.. If all I want to do is replicate the file (and associated last modified date) from one location to another.. I don't care about determining if I am in a DST zone or not.. I do, however, care that the time stamp is the same as the original file.. Is ther no way for me to specify in your program that I want the exact date/time to be replicated? If not, I need to find another mechanism because these date/time stamps are important to me.

Thanks,
Gus

[superflexible]

You may not care if you are in DST or not, but Windows does and shows different times. It is just a matter of display. The actual time is stored in UTC form on the hard drive (a kind of Greenwich Mean Time without DST). Unfortunately you never get to see the actual time stored in the file system. Windows always prepares the time for you in a way it deems appropriate, using your time zone. Different versions of Windows do that differently.

It also depends on how the FTP server software behaves. Originally, FTP cannot preserve any timestamps at all.

You can also play with the timezone settings on the second tab sheet of the Internet/FTP dialog.

You can also try not using FTP and using Samba shares instead.

[LISpeedyG]

Thanks for the response..
I actually do care about the timestamp. I extract these files from an SQL DB that natively stores the LastSaveDates in UTC format. The extraction process evaluates the UTC dates and converts them to my local time (taking into account the DST fo my area). So, I took great pain to write the extraction procedure to account for local times and I can see the local times correctly witn a Win7/server2008R2 file system.

I use these dates in order for me to audit the validity of these files locally after extraction against the server SQL objects is to verify the date/time stamps (as well as other characteristics) of the files.

As far as the FTP site.. I have tested the site and it does allow me to store the date/time stamps of my files.
I have attached screenshot of a couple examples of (local) files viewed thru the server2008R2 file system and a respective sync attempt. You can see that the local file dates are not reported correctly.. It just

I have tried your suggestion to modify settings on the ftp dialog. But this seems to be a local file issue. Please let me know if there is anything else I can try.

Thank You for your patience,
Gus

[superflexible]

Hi,

the issue is only in the Sync Preview. It's just a visual issue. Internally, everything is handled via UTC.

Since these files are from summer, Windows and our software use a different method how to show the times. One shows them as DST, the other shows them as normal time. They are still the same times! They are the same times. The same times, just displayed differently.

You should worry less about what is displayed in the Sync Preview than what ends up on the FTP side.

To really compare the times properly, you need to switch all computers to use UTC in the Regional Settings and then compare them. Otherwise you are fooled by the display.

Internally, there are no local times. In the file system, there are no local times. They are only shown to the user.

Cheers,
Tobias