www.aiscl.co.uk

Problem: Some files are repeatedly backed-up, even if they have not changed since the last back-up session.

Description: Due to upload to, and download from, a FTP server, some of the files stored on a Windows 2000 Server have peculiar datetime stamps: in the Windows Explorer they show no date/time at all, and when I look at the properties of the file both the 'Created' and 'Modified' property show 'Wednesday, February 06, 1907, 12:00:00 AM'
These files are the files that are repeatedly backed up.

When I look inside the ZIP files produced by AISbackup, I notice that these files have in the ZIP file a 'modified' date/time not of the above mentioned date/time, but of about the date/time of the backup. This difference in modified date/time stamp is probably the reason why they are backed up each time.

Question: How can I work around this until the problem is solved?

Arie

AISBackup usually asks to fix invalid dates, is this not happening?

Perhaps if you can run AISBackup on the actual server the dates will be repaired.

Barry

Barry wrote:AISBackup usually asks to fix invalid dates, is this not happening?

No, it does not ask to fix the invalid dates. What kind of dates does AISbackup consider to be invalid? The same as the ZIP file specs?

Barry wrote:Perhaps if you can run AISBackup on the actual server the dates will be repaired.

I'm already running AISbackup on the actual server, usually automatically. I just let it run the same job manually and there was no question or warning about (or fixing of) invalid dates (but the files in question were backed up once more...)

Arie

AISBackup here reports an error when run interactively for a date of 'Wednesday, February 06, 1907, 12:00:00 AM', I set the invalid date using the program below.

AISBackup uses Windows dates these are different depending on whether the disk is NTFS or FAT, however date comparisons are always done using FAT's 2 second time resolution. Zip date format is equivalent to FAT date format, however the NTFS date is stored in the user data area of the zip file by AISBackup so after restore the date modified will always reflect the original file.

Here is a freeware program (what I wrote) that can change the date modified of a file:

www.aiscl.co.uk/date/AISDateMod.zip

Barry

Hi Barry,

Barry wrote:AISBackup here reports an error when run interactively for a date of 'Wednesday, February 06, 1907, 12:00:00 AM', I set the invalid date using the program below.

I managed to reproduce it. I had to set the date to Year 1907, Month 2, Day 5, HH 22, MM 0, DD 0 to get the same date/time on disk, probably because I'm in another time zone

When I create a new backup job where I explicitly select the file(s) with an invalid date, I do get the question about the invalid date when I run it.
If I, however, create a backup job where I don't select the files itself explicitly, but select the directory that contains the files, I don't get the question when I run the backup. The files with the invalid date are included each time I run the backup, and in the backup they get the date and time (+ 2 hours) the backup was run. On the disk they retain the original date/time in 1907.

BTW, I have noticed files with other 'invalid' date/times as well, like 26 november 1902, so it seems there is not a specific critical date. The time is allways 00:00:00. In the windows explorer it does not show a date/time, the date/time I'm referring to is the 'Modified' date/time as shown in the file properties

HTH

Arie