default file action - overwrite if newer

[nickburt]

Hi folks,

I am transferring using Filezilla to a cloud storage (Box).
If I set the default file exists action to overwrite if source file newer, some of my files, which haven't been changed since the last transfer, still get transferred, while others are correctly skipped.
I have preserve timestamps of transfered files checked.

What am I missing?
Many thanks in advance.

[boco]

Could you check if the timestamps indeed match to the minute? Some FTP server software can get quite "creative" when displaying timestamps. Also note that older files might not display file time at all, for LIST (they display the year instead).

[nickburt]

Time stamps should be identical. All files are relatively new, or at least no older than around 7 or 8 years old. All created and worked on in Windows environment.

I've just tried an experiment. Transferred the entire contents of a folder on my pc to a folder in Box. Once it had finished, I did it again, so no files were changed between the two transfers. It transferred every single file, without skipping any.

[nickburt]

Just trying it again.

Exactly the same transfer as before.

This time it's skipping some and transferring some.

Bizarre.

[boco]

Please note that by "older", I referred to files older than a moth (it' actually not defined anywhere). If the listings are obtained by LIST, those older files usually lose their file time and only display date. FileZilla shows "00:00" as time. DOESN'T APPLY TO LISTS OBTAINED BY MLSD.

Unfortunately, I had bizarre cases where FileZilla showed timestamps of just transferred files as being 7 or 8 years old. When connecting to a server, it attempts to find out the server's timezone offset by checking the first file in the root (MDTM) and compare it to the listing timestamp. If the server returns odd values, FileZilla might erroneously apply a huge offset value.
tl;dr: Check the year of files. Even if everything else seems to match, the year could be off.

Personally, I don't rely on timestamps too much.

[nickburt]

Filezilla is displaying the correct date (year, month and day) and time (hrs, mins and secs) stamp of the last modified date and time when I view the remote site files and the local site files.
i.e. they are identical and should, therefore, have been skipped because I have "Preserve timestamps of transferred files" checked and my "default file exists action" is set to "Overwrite file if source file newer"

Using the ability to transfer only those that have been revised is important to be able to update remote folders quickly and efficiently.
Surely, it's not rocket science to write code that does a simple check. (Not that I can write code!!). In fact, Filezilla seem to think they have written the code for this - it just doesn't work.

I did wonder if an offset would be needed to account for time zone differences between local and remote. But, it doesn't seem to (or shouldn't) be needed if the "Preserve timestamps of transferred files" is checked.

[botg]

Please carefully watch the message log, there must have been errors scrolling by.

[nickburt]

Just tried exactly the same transfer again.
Nothing has been changed since the last time yesterday, so all date/time stamps are still the same.

The same happened. Some were skipped, some were transferred.

Bog eyed now, having watched the transfer log - no errors observed.

[nickburt]

Still having this problem, anyone got any other ideas?