FileZilla expert required!

[John Gray]

I'm attempting to use this to back up a (Joomla) website to a local server hard disk, but obviously I do not wish to recopy files which have not changed.

So I've used
Edit -> Settings -> Transfers -> File exists action -> Default file exists action -> Downloads -> Overwrite file if size differs or source file is newer
Whew!

However, it seems to me that, in spite of this, every file is being copied down to the server, whereas very few should be.

I can't find a mention of this problem anywhere - and, yes, the website server has almost exactly the same time as my local server.

Can anyone who uses FileZilla help me here? Thanks!

[djohnson123]

According to Filezilla, "almost exactly" may not be close enough. It recommends that the time on your local server be synced to the server at the far end. Also keep time zone differences in mind.

[John Gray]

So how close exactly does the synchronisation have to be, bearing in mind that my server is synchronised via NNTP, and I suspect the Unix-based web server (over which I have no control) is too? Both servers are in the UK. I have checked the time difference and it is within a couple of seconds.

And surely what FileZilla is checking is the timestamps on pairs of files, one file at each end? If the one on the webserver is newer, or the size is different, then the file should be copied down to my local server - but only if one or both of these conditions is true.

[jscher2000]

As far as I can tell, FTP upload doesn't appear to preserve the time stamp of the file. In other words, the time on that file will always be the time it was uploaded or otherwise modified after upload.

[John Gray]

This isn't bog-standard FTP! Both DreamWeaver and FileZilla make use of the timestamp information on the local and the remote files on which to base a decision about whether or not a file should be uploaded (or downloaded). I can't see how they could make valid decisions unless the timestamp information somehow 'accompanied' the file, or was set following a file transfer.

[steveh]

This isn't bog-standard FTP! Both DreamWeaver and FileZilla make use of the timestamp information on the local and the remote files on which to base a decision about whether or not a file should be uploaded (or downloaded). I can't see how they could make valid decisions unless the timestamp information somehow 'accompanied' the file, or was set following a file transfer.

Hi John

I presume that you have tried the filezilla forum? I have done a search on there and tried to express your problem and something similar came up which suggested that version 3.0.7-rc1 would preserve the time timestamps.

This is the forum address http://forum.filezilla-project.org/view ... f=2&t=4963" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and the post mentioned above HTH

[John Gray]

Thanks, Steve, but I've been there - the version you're talking about is 3.0.7-rc1 (2008-02-10)!
I'm actually using 3.4.0-beta1 (2011-01-09), having previously used 3.3.5.1 (2010-11-21).
Neither seems to have solved my problem - sob!