More timestamp madness (Synchronize)

Running WinSCP 4.0.7

My local PC (Windows XP SP2) is Mountain Daylight time
My remote server (Linux Centos 5) is Mountain Standard time. I was previously on an older linux version and having timestamp problems, so I thought I would upgrade the server before trying to get this finally working.

Running a BATCH script, if I synchronize a directory targeting the remote linux box, the timestamp is adjusted by two hours (not just one as I would expect). Eg:

Linux shows: 2003-06-28 11:46:41.000000000 -0700
Windows XP shows: Saturday, June 28, 2003, 1:46:41 PM

Note that the windows file "Created" time is today, and the "Modified" time is the actual last modification date (ie. 2003!).

The worst part is, if I again synchronize the same directory (with no modifications at all), ALL files are retransferred!

It would be nice to have a solution that does not break when DST changes again in the fall. These synchronizations can involve many many files, and as I have found out, winscp is not so fast at transferring a lot of individual files.

It seems to be amazingly difficult to get an rsync solution that functions between Windows and Linux... I have tried several and WinSCP seems to be the most stable, if only it would function correctly for Synchronization processing.

Any advice? Am I the only person trying to do this kind of thing? Sorry if I sound frustrated... I realize winSCP is not a commercial product, and I do appreciate all the work that has gone into it.

Why do you have daylight time locally and standard time remotely?

I guess I have never tested WinSCP in such configuration. I cannot even imagine now what impact this may have.

Which DST option do you have selected on Environment tag of login dialog?

What happens to timestamp if you upload local file created in standard time? What happens to timestamp if you upload local file created in daylight time?
I'm curious both for timestamp shown in WinSCP panel and timestamp shown by 'ls' on the server.

Can you try the above both for the first two DST options (adjust remote timestamp to local conventions and adjust remote timestamp with DST)?

Thanks.

Well I didn't want my web app to have to deal with timezone changes.. hence standard time. But if changing that will make this issue go away I will be very tempted! (lesser of evils)

Is there any way to set all these "tabbed" parameters for a batch file? Or are they only available for the interactive WinSCP windows program?

UPDATE:

I changed my linux server to be DST so everything matches between my local PC and the server time-wise.

BUT... I still have the following issues:

1) Timestamps on the linux server are still not in agreement with the local PC. For example a linux file shows a timestamp of
12:46:41.000000000 -0600 (ie 12:46 MDT), and the local file shows a timestamp of 1:46 PM (MDT).

2) When I do a synchronize from local to remote, followed by a second one, MANY files are retransferred on the second synchronize! (shouldn't they already be in synch?) On further investigation, it appears that the files that are being re-transferred all seem to have been last modified around the end of March, many of them in 2005. This would appear to be a possible bug in terms of handling the recent changes in daylight savings rules, with respect to files that were created before the new rules went into effect.

3) I went to look to see if there was an option to make sure only timestamps were being compared (since file sizes change with the different file allocation schemes), and it appears from the documentation that 4.0.7 is no longer supported, as the online documentation applies ONLY to the current BETA version 4.1. Is this Beta version stable? Do I need to upgrade?

Rob (Guest) wrote:

Is there any way to set all these "tabbed" parameters for a batch file? Or are they only available for the interactive WinSCP windows program?

Please read FAQ.

Rob (Guest) wrote:

This would appear to be a possible bug in terms of handling the recent changes in daylight savings rules, with respect to files that were created before the new rules went into effect.

What change of rules do you refer to?

3) I went to look to see if there was an option to make sure only timestamps were being compared (since file sizes change with the different file allocation schemes), and it appears from the documentation that 4.0.7 is no longer supported, as the online documentation applies ONLY to the current BETA version 4.1. Is this Beta version stable? Do I need to upgrade?

File size should not change with different allocation scheme. What is changing is actual space occupied by the file on disk. But this is not the same as file size.
Anyway, by default only timestamps are compared. The criteria can be changed in script in 4.1 beta only. In previous versions it is possible in GUI only. Again refer to the FAQ mentioned before.
There are no changes in timestamp handling in 4.1 beta.