Overwriting .xisf files not changing date/time

[MineralMike]

I'm reprocessing an image from a couple of weeks ago, in July. I went through all the steps, and ended up with a single integration I wanted to save to disk as a .xisf file.

When I clicked File->Save As, I got the dialog, and selected the previous integrated image file name. PI told me it already exists, and do I want to overwrite. IO clicked Yes, and the file was saved correctly.

But when I opened Windows File Explorer, the date/time of the file was unchanged from the original July date/time, not set to today's date.

I opened the file in PI and saved it again with the same result -- it still had the July date/time.

Am I missing something? I checked Global Preferences, but found nothing to control the file-save date/time. Is this a bug?

Thanks.

--- Mike

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Mike,

This cannot be reproduced on any supported platform (FreeBSD, Linux, macOS, Windows 10). This is a very strange machine-specific issue. Check your operating system settings and configuration, including any third-party applications that could be interfering with the normal operation of your file system. This is not a bug in PixInsight, definitely.

EDIT: Make sure you are displaying the 'Date modified' item instead of the default 'Date' item (which is creation date) on File Explorer. Or use PixInsight's File Explorer window, where you'll always see the last file modification dates.

[MineralMike]

Thanks for the prompt reply. On Windows 8.1, File Explorer apparently displays the creation date; I see no option to display the modified date. I can sort the view by modified date, but that date does not display with the file -- only the creation date.

I use PixInsight's File Explorer while in PI, but for general file copying and management, I use Windows File Explorer.

I suppose I'll just click a file name to save under that name in PI, then delete the existing file.

Thanks for looking into this.

--- Mike

[Juan Conejero]

I suppose I'll just click a file name to save under that name in PI, then delete the existing file.

This is not necessary. The last modification time is always updated correctly for each file you overwrite, it's just Windows File Explorer that is not showing it by default (which is, to put it elegantly, surprising). So the problem has to be fixed on Windows File Explorer, not by generating duplicate files unnecessarily. Try right-clicking the Date item on File Explorer; maybe you'll get a context menu with the Date Modified option.

[John Massey]

In win 10 when I hover the mouse pointer over a selected file the modified date appears. Is win 8 the same?

[MineralMike]

Yes, mousing over a file pops up a small window that contains the modification date. I'll just have to live with that, since Windows 8.1 seems to have forgotten the standard way of doing things in the computer world.

Thanks for all the information and suggestions.

--- Mike

[Andres.Pozo]

You can configure the explorer of Win10 to show the modification time. Select the "detail" view, right click on the header of the table and there should be options to choose what columns do you want to see.