Cannot get set File Creation Date = Episode Air Date to work

[KayJayDK]

I'm running FileBot (3.61) on Windows 7 64-bit. I'm using the windows installer version.

I have been trying to get FileBot to set the file creation date to the episode air date for TV shows. I read on the site that you need to set -DuseExtendedFileAttributes=true and -DuseNativeShell=true to enable this behavior so I have edited filebot.l4j.ini to include this. When that didn't work I also tried the filebot.launcher.l4j.ini
I tried the Desktop shortcut, starting the FileBot.exe the FileBot.jar and from the command line but none if these methods makes it work.

I had both the 64 bit and 32 bit java installed on my system and I have tried completely removing all Java files and settings for both versions and only downloading the newest 32 bit version (I use Chrome so I need the 32 bit version of Java).

Any suggestions what I'm doing wrong?

[KayJayDK]

After some further experimenting, I realized that the problem is that my shows are stored on a NAS. If I copy some shows to my SSD on my PC, the creation date will be set correctly to the aired date. The question is, can I make it work on my NAS? I have a utility to set the dates of files manually and it works fine on both my NAS so I guess FileBot should be able to do it as well.

[rednoah]

If you use the installer version that feature is enabled by default but maybe there is issues with limited capabilities of the remote filesystem.

Do you get any error messages in the console output when you rename files on the NAS?

[KayJayDK]

I get

Code: Select all

WARNING: Failed to set xattr: java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException: Y:\Shows\Serier\Awake\Awake - S01E01 - Pilot.mp4:filename 
jul 09, 2013 1:29:04 PM net.sourceforge.filebot.media.MediaDetection storeMetaInfo

on both my NAS

[KayJayDK]

One NAS is A d-link dns-343 and the other is a NETGEAR Stora MS2110 both of them running linux. However, as mentioned above, with another program, SetFileDate I can easily alter the dates of the files on both NAS.

[rednoah]

Fixed with r1653. Setting timestamps before xattr now so that even if xattr fails it'll not skip doing the timestamps.

[KayJayDK]

Fixed with r1653. Setting timestamps before xattr now so that even if xattr fails it'll not skip doing the timestamps.

Ah, great. So that was the problem. Thanks, I'll give it a try when I come home later today

[KayJayDK]

I just tried r1653. Same problem, both from gui and command line. Works on local drive, not on the NAS and I get the same output as before with the xattr.

[rednoah]

Not supported then. FileBot only sets CreationDate if supported, but does not touch LastModified.

CreationDate is generally not supported on Linux filesystems. Windows and Mac have LastModified and CreationDate, Linux only has LastModified file attributes so it doesn't work on Linux-based devices.

[KayJayDK]

Not supported then. FileBot only sets CreationDate if supported, but does not touch LastModified.

CreationDate is generally not supported on Linux filesystems. Windows and Mac have LastModified and CreationDate, Linux only has LastModified file attributes so it doesn't work on Linux-based devices.

Yes, I have been reading up on the subject and it seems that there are a lot of issues with time stamps across systems. However, file creation date does show up in windows explorer even for files on the NAS and some tools/applications can change it so there must be some way. I understand that this is beyond the scope of FileBot, though.
It still does all the other stuff wonderfully. It would just have been a little nice added bonus to have my shows tagged with the air date so they show up in the proper order in XMBC under latest added episodes etc.

[rednoah]

Once XBMC recognizes each episode it also knows the airdate from the tvdb data. There should be a sort mode for that. As long as you got seriesname/sxe XBMC can do the rest within it's own database.

[KayJayDK]

Once XBMC recognizes each episode it also knows the airdate from the tvdb data. There should be a sort mode for that. As long as you got seriesname/sxe XBMC can do the rest within it's own database.

True and that's what I have always relied on when making smart lists. I just switched to Frodo which has a Recently Added Episodes built in which sorts shows by "date added" which in fact is the file creation date and cannot be changed... I thought it would clever to have all your shows set to the air date and I was trying to manually set the date for some 9000 episodes and started feeling it was tedious work after 50 episodes.

[rednoah]

Easiest way would be to just have the YYYY-MM-DD airdate in your format expression. With that information available in the filename it's easy for any automation tool to grab the timestamp from the filename and then set the LastModified date.

[KayJayDK]

Thanks for the help and the hint.

I now found a solution which is, if not fully automatic, at least less tedious than doing everything manually.
I found a small free command line tool called FileTouch which simply sets the file dates of a given file. I use FileBot to rename the files with [{airdate.format("MM-dd-yyyy")}]{n} - {s00e00} - {t} which will add the airdate of the episode within brackets at the beginning of the filename (in the format used by the utility). I then use a small VBscript to parse the files and extract the date and then pass the date and filename to the commandline. Then I run FileBot again with my normal naming scheme and everything is perfect.

I know I probably could have used the built-in scripting system of FileBot but I haven't had the time to explore that.