Date Stamp Problem

[Mark Wilson]

Long time Mac user, new to OSX (10.1.5)

The date/time stamp is not displaying consistantly across applications on my Mac.

By that I mean, the Last Modified date of a file that is displayed in a folder or in the Get Info window is 7 hours AHEAD of the actual time the file was modified!

Sherlock reports the correct modified time of the file, the Date & Time preferences are correctly set, and the Clock displays the correct time, but the same file shows different Last Modified times between the Finder and Sherlock.

Help! Is my Mac on Cupertino time?

-Mark.

 

[ladavacm]

Sorry, cannot duplicate your problem. Are you sure you have setup the timezone correctly (it is in time part of the system preferences).

Namely, UNIX runs in UTC internally, and translates to whatever is the external time zone. If this is not correct, you loose.

 

[Mark Wilson]

Thanks for the response!

Yes, Date & Time are correctly set, as is the Timezone (I'm in Ireland) and the Apple European Time server is setting the clock correctly.

I have tried disabling the Time Server and manually resetting the time; Checking the Date/Time settings in classic (just in case); OSX and Classic applications give the same results.

But it is not just new files that are affected, EVERY file on the Mac is ahead.

BTW, this played havoc with my backup. After I upgraded from 9.1 to OSX last week, Retrospect backed up 35,000 files/40Gb as part of its normal incremental backup, because every single file had a new date stamp!

I have scoured every web resource I know of, nobody else seems to have experienced this problem.

-Mark.

 

[Lazzo]

Hi Mark, this seems to be a problem for all of us in the 'UK' zone and, I assume, throughout Europe.

So far I've seen no way to remedy CupertinoTime(TM) and I haven't seen any reason given for it being like that, either. Turning off/on the time server control pane doesn't work.

Maybe leaving the time server switched off and setting the time back 7 hours would do the trick. Turn off 'show clock in menu bar' to avoid confusion.

I haven't tried that yet - after 7 months in OSX I've got used to it - almost like learning a new language!

A client was happy, after I sent them a file, to note that I was working on their stuff at 1.00am

 

[Mark Wilson]

Hi Lazzo,

First of all, Apple's telephone tech support have no knowledge of this problem which, if it is as common as you say, is incredible!

Secondly, IT'S FIXED

I changed some of the settings in the International Preferences and restarted ... Hey Presto! All time stamps back to normal and another night of backup hell as 35,000 files had changed modification dates!

We have another Powerbook with the same problem and I haven't yet been able to duplicate my success on that.

-Mark.

 

[Lazzo]

You lucky devil - I spent hours piddling around in preferences. What did you do?? You'd better make a note and keep it safe. If anything happens to your Mac or you upgrade the system, it's back to square one! (or square 35,000)