dates screwed on one machine - all showing d/l date. HELP.

[justcomingdear]

Three days and several re-downloads later. I've just built a new Mojave 10.14.5 boot volume and installed precisely one app – Dropbox. And it's still playing up.

I have paid-up Dropbox and I'm pointing two computers at it. The 12" MB and the web interface see eveything as it should be – folder and file dates AOK (which is imperative). My 27" iMac (fine last week) is not.

I replaced the drive in my iMac with a 4TB SSD and reinstalled everything from scratch. Left Dropbox downloading 250gb of data (on my 1TB pipe, so no big deal). Done this three times. Binned Dropbox, signed in-and-out, tried partial downloads – always the same issue

• Files are correctly dated.

• Folders *with content* are incorrectly dated – they show the download date (so they're all within a couple of hours of each other)

• Folders *with no content – empty* (don't ask) show the correct created/modified date.

• Package docs (where control-click allows Show Package Contents) are incorrectly dated.

So it occurs to me that any non-empty folder or package doc [I use Intaglio, which saves its docs as packages] has its date modified incorrectly during this sync process.

The folder date issue I could possibly work with, though it's a PITA. But to have thousands of Intaglio plans (maybe Pages too, but not sure) in any order other than last modified is an absolute impossibility. I'm currently referring to the 12" to deduce the drawing heirarchy. 

Please help? This is just not viable. Thanks!

[Mark]

I'm dont actually think there is a way around this.... Dropbox doesnt (and never has) recreated file modified/changed dates etc. on machines when syncing. The file system that its syncing to creates them itself. 

[justcomingdear]

Hello Mark. Honored that my sole post has been addressed by a SuperUser.

I'm happy to accept that 'Dropbox doesn't (and never has) recreated file modified/changed dates etc. on machines when syncing'. Of course.

But what I'm seeing is not expected (nor consistent) behavior. And I'm not the only one who is experiencing modification date anomalies.

To that end I'm still searching for a constructive suggestion as to how to regain the advertised, expected and absolutely imperative feature that renders the whole synching concept viable.

So anyone else out there: I'm still looking for a practical fix. Or failing that an alternative, although I otherwise love recommend and deploy Dropbox.

Thanks though.

[Здравко]

@Mark, Your statement is definitely NOT true! In fact Dropbox always recreate file modified/changed dates etc. on machines when syncing. I just now checked it, to be sure (i.e. Dropbox support this). Filesystems just keep this information! All file attributes (classic or extended) are created/controlled by the rest of the system (including installed applications). Yes, If not explicitly driven, by default modification/creation dates are set to current. So, in the particular case, I'm sure, need further investigation by Dropbox, why this happens.

[justcomingdear]

Thanks Здравко!

Yep – hope Dropbox are listening. Driving me nuts.

[Jasper B.3]

likewise. i noticed with horror as i went to sort out my 50000 image photo library. i no longer know how old my daughter was in any of our photos of her 😞

[Здравко]

Hi @Jasper B.3,

Your horror is a 'white horror' . Photo shoot moment is included as metadata to the image (if not edited). So, You can recreate...

[Jasper B.3]

ah that's good that the exif data is preserved but it doesn't help sorting the files out unless checking all 50000 by hand in Preview or Photos etc. also music and code projects have been affected making it very hard to track down latest versions of things. it's a real mess, as is the Selective / Smart Sync issue on OSX i also came here to report, and found a 30-page thread on. that issue is apparently 'Solved', but no actual solution is actually presented, just an explanation of the cause, laying the blame at Apple's feet.

as soon as i can safely extract my 1.5Tb of files from dropbox (when the hard drive space issue caused by faulty Selective Sync is returned), i will be leaving the service. i'm already discovering the Date Created / Modified issues as i do this, hence posting over here. this service is a real mess.

[Здравко]

Ooo... @Jasper B.3, Yes it's real mess for You. My idea was for few photos. May be the biggest troubles are project file structures...

Here it's good to be noted that 'Selective Sync' and 'Smart Sync' are two very different things! If You use 'Selective Sync' and You move some kind of data there for syncing (if the files are on same partition), then time/date attributes are preserved. If, for the same thing, You use 'Smart Sync', then this move is actually between two partitions! The 'Smart Sync' is something similar to independent partition (as behavior). The move between partitions can lead to time/date attributes lost sometimes (depend on file managers in use). The last can be related to any service!

[Jasper B.3]

so it seems like my last 7 years of work while using dropbox has the dates messed up on pretty much all my files.

i confirmed this by looking at an old backup of my dropbox (from a few years ago) where songs that i had worked on and photos i had taken had the correct dates

i'm in the process of trying to consolidate 20 years of digital work into an offline archive by year and this is causing me huge problems as i'm ending up with multiple copies of all my files due to dropbox having given them different years and me filing them in multiple years

pretty appalling really. i won't even know for sure when my music was made, or which versions are the latest of things. this is why i'm creating this archive, so that i can move away from using dropbox except as a secondary, less stable backup