Problem with timestamps and USB drives

[sanjonny]

So I backup several of my files on usb drives (they are also on a server and a computer, from the department of redundancy department)

All this occurred on a computer using the latest filebot (downloaded today) and windows xp with all updates. I have not verified it on other windows products yet.

And in the past I havent really noticed an issue, so I don't know if this is a new issue with the latest revision or I just happened to do something screwy and caused a problem.

But when I renamed several movies that were on the USB drive (which is also a mapped drive) mapped as H: I basically added media info to the movie names that were already on the drive, which did a normal rename. So I took Shine (1995) to Shine (1995) [640x480]

This caused a major problem because the created date was changed to Jan 1, 1992 or 1969 depending on the computer accessing it, which basically meant that the date was removed for creation date, and the modified and accessed dates were both set to the time the rename was performed (2-12-2013 8:40 pm)

Normally, when renaming files and I verified this because I had exact copies of the same files on the network server, it changes the access date, but does not change the modified date or the created date. Some had jan 1 1995, jan 1 1996 and jan 1 1992 as the creation date.

This caused an issue for any sync software, because it looks like the files have been modified due to the change in dates, which then makes them have to be recopied or synced and throws all kinds of stuff off (three different sync programs all went kablooey over it.

Changing the files back using the undo in filebot had no effect, the modified date was then changed to the time the undo was performed, but the creation and other dates were still screwy.

This does not happen on local drives or network NAS drives. Those retain the modified and creation date and only the accessed date is changed with the renaming option.

I am not sure if it is just the USB drive I was using ( a standard 3gb I think seagate usb drive) or all usb drives, I will test that out once I restore the files properly by recopying them.
When copying the original files, the dates were properly maintained, so it appears to be a filebot issue and not a usb drive issue. I checked this using both windows copy and teracopy and the original creation date and modified date remained correct, with only the accessed date being changed.

Filebot changes all three, basically setting creation to null and modified to when the name change occurs.

[rednoah]

1.
FileBot sets the CreationDate timestamp to the episode airdate in case of episodes or movie release year in case of movies.

e.g. after renaming Léon The Professional (1994) CreationDate will be set to 1.1.1994

This the CreationDate and xattr features can be enabled/disabled via:

Code: Select all

-DuseExtendedFileAttributes=[true|false]

2.
On Windows you get 2 move/copy engines. One is using Windows Shell (fancy progress dialog), the other the Java Files API (my own ugly progress dialog). Looks like whenever Windows copies the files it'll set last-modified. The Java Files API however doesn't do that.

You can make it always use the Java Files API via:

Code: Select all

-DuseNativeShell=[true|false]

btw all of these features are disabled by default if you're using the FileBot (platform) shortcut.

[sanjonny]

On the java copy, is that backwards or something? Because using filebot on one directory yields the change to modified but on the other does not (perhaps because the nas uses its own interpreter or something and the usb uses windows?) outside of filebot, i have teracopy installed which does not change modified date, but winmerge uses windows and it also doesnt appear to change modify date. I will have to research a bit more on my xp machine.

[rednoah]

I donno. The way you describe the Java move/copy seems to work best with preserving attributes. So I recommend using FileBot (platform) for all your renaming.