Hi all,

I used to use an old G4 Mac as an image server to which Quark referenced the hi-res files which were part of the job. However, that G4 finally died a couple of weeks ago, and has been replaced by a new Mac Mini running OS X Tiger.

So, having copied all the archived hi-res to the new Mac Mini, I now seem to have the problem when opening Quark documents that every single image is first shown as missing (expected), but when found ALL show as modified. On closer inspection all of the images have the modified date reflecting when they were copied, and so Quark is thinking the images have changed.

I know the shortcut to update all Modified images in one go, but how can I stop the modified date from changing in the first place?

Thanks in advance.

Jonathan

I don't know about in OS X (although I imagine it's the same) but if you use Terminal to move the files and use the -p parameter of cp that preserves all the meta data of the files (i.e. modified data, create date, etc...).

i.e. cp -p filename destaination

That, I am afraid, is beyond me. I found a few suggested tricks using Terminal, but I think I need a bit more of a walk through.

I can see this as being a permanent problem, because once a job is approved and finished, and burnt to DVD for archiving, for quick reference for next time, I copy the images to the Mac Mini, which again will see the modified date change. This could end up being a nightmare for me.

What about using something like Carbon Copy Cloner (freeware) or Super Duper (donationware, but usable without paying) to copy the data across? Both are friendly to use with a nice UI, but I believe they use Terminal commands behind the scenes - so should retain the original dates and meta data, hopefully. If you don't want to clone the whole volume across then you can choose a folder.

I wonder if the system date and time was out on the G4 - older machines have a high chance of the P-RAM battery going flat and therefore the date and time reverting to, say, 1970! Just a thought.

That's cool.

It depends on exactly what you are moving and from/to where.

If for instance you wanted to move a file called picture.jpg from the Desktop to your Documents folder (for example) you would do the following...

1. Open Terminal
2. type ... cd ~/Desktop ... press ENTER (this changes directory to your desktop. ~ is the shortcut for your users folder)
3. type ... cp picture.jpg ~/Documents ... press ENTER (cp is a copy command and needs a source "picture.jpg" and a target "~/Documents")
4. Close Terminal

Done.

(don't include the ... by the way )

That will simply copy the picture.jpg file to the Documents folder.

If you want to copy it and preserve all the modified date etc... then on step 3 use the command...

cp -p picture.jpg ~/Documents (the -p parameter means "preserve" file data).

If you wanted to copy 100 files all called blahx.jpg (i.e. picture1.jpg, picture2.jpg, ...) then in step three you can use the command...

cp *.jpg ~/Documents (the * is a wildcard and means "match any letters" in this case it means any files that end in .jpg, this will copy all the jpg files to the Documents folder)

You can use -p with this also...

cp -p *.jpg ~/Documents

If you let me know where the files are (i.e. which folder) and where you want them to be I may be able to give you a step by step instructions.

hmmm. First off, thanks for the indepth Terminal instructions. I will take a proper look shortly although unfortunately all the images have already been copied and removed from the original source, so unless I can retrospectively apply the original creation date to the modified date, then I am stuffed!

A reasonable comment about the G4 clock, although the dates are just changing from when the file was created a few months ago, to when they were copied yesterday. I need to decide between a rock and hard place as to whether I go the CCC or SuperDuper route, or just accept that a good few Quark documents will need some images updating when I open them, but that brings the danger of updating the wrong images....

However, I have noticed that some dates have not been modified. I know a chunk of files were first copied from the old G4 to a new Firewire drive (before we purchased the Mac Mini), and then copied to Mac Mini earlier this week. Another chunk were copied directly from my Mac Pro (running Snow Leopard) to the new Mac Mini. Further tests just now appear to copy OK from my main Mac Pro G5, which from now on is where all files will be copied.

Further tests needed I think. Great help though. Thanks!

I have just selected the Mac Mini archive folder, to which the images get copied to, and selected the "Show View Options" and unclicked "Use relative dates". That has stopped the date from modifying after copying. Is it really that simple?

Nice one

It wasn't as simple as that. Some files are happy with keeping their original date, some have the date changed after copying. Not a pattern that I can work out.

Looking further into the terminal option, I have a mixture of tiff, jpegs, eps, pdfs etc etc which all seem to either change their modification date, or keep it! Reading through how the terminal copying works, I don't think I will be able to use that method with such a mixture of file formats, and also some reside in sub-folders within the main job folder if they have different categories.

It is a wacky situation, because some files will at first have their date modified if I bulk copy a whole folder, but then when I go back in and re-copy the indivual files affected, the modified date remains untouched.

The "use relative dates" does nothing other than call today "Today" or call it 16th December 2011

If you are trying to copy everything from inside a specific folder you can just use * or even *.* for just files.

But if there is stuff you don't want to copy that will take that too.

If you had a folder structure something like this:



Then in terminal you could do this:


The "-a" will preserve attributes (dates, owners, etc) and folder structure.

Rather scarily that does actually make sense, but it is still beyond me as to what is going wrong. The Apple forums are not exactly awash with people asking the same question as me, but there are people with a similar (unresolved) issue. The problem doesn't exist when copying from my MacPro G5 (Snow Leopard) to my PowerPC (Tiger) - both running Snow Leopard - or to any external hard drive - just when copying to the Mac Mini with Lion.

Edit: Oh blimey! I just realised I called the original thread incorrectly. I stated Tiger when I meant Lion

It could be a Lion problem, or perhaps an Intel problem?