CAD Forum

Has anyone ever came across the last saved date shown in the summary info being incorrect?

This is the file properties from windows. The date created and date modified is when the file was checked out by our PDM system, also notice the file is read only so should not be able to be saved.
This is what is reported by SolidWorks in the summary info. The file is read only yet SolidWorks shows the last save as yesterday at the time that the assembly this part is in was saved. It also shows that the file was last saved by SolidWorks 2020, we are currently using SolidWorks 2022.
We use the SolidWorks last saved date for some automated checks, when a lot of files have the incorrect last saved date it can generate hundreds of false results.

I just checked and most that I checked don't match either. Vault and non-vaulted files all have significantly created date, like years different. The Last Saved more often close to the Modified date, but off by an hour and a second. I'm guessing SW has it's own metadata values for the created and last saved data. Properties dialog from Windows Explorer is showing the data from the basic "required" standard file properties.

The Windows property dialog, General tab looks like it's from a new copy of the file (Save As).

Do you work with PDM? We're not on PDM but perhaps PDM could interpret things differently. I've never seen that occur personally, we actually use the Windows time stamp sometimes to know if an issue(such as work that was done and saved lost) was caused by a save not working.

We work with a third party PDM. The date in the windows file properties is the date the file was checked out of the vault which is essentially creating a new file on the local drive so that is as expected. The unexpected bit is the last save date in the SolidWorks Summary Info and that it is saying last saved with SW2020. The file was set read only when checked out as it is a released file so it could not have been saved and even if it had been saved on that date it should have shown as last saved with sw2022.

This seems to happen randomly, I have done multiple tests and cannot find a way to trigger the behavior.

acmall wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 2:47 am We work with a third party PDM. The date in the windows file properties is the date the file was checked out of the vault which is essentially creating a new file on the local drive so that is as expected. The unexpected bit is the last save date in the SolidWorks Summary Info and that it is saying last saved with SW2020. The file was set read only when checked out as it is a released file so it could not have been saved and even if it had been saved on that date it should have shown as last saved with sw2022.

This seems to happen randomly, I have done multiple tests and cannot find a way to trigger the behavior.

Ah, PDM will make that difference.

Is this happening on your computer or other user's?

Seems a bit strange behavior that user can check out file that is released. Or did you mean the file is cached read only because it's released? With SW PDM we've had people have files checked out that have the read only flag checked and the read only flag unchecked on files they do not have checked out. Most of that boils down to they're doing the checking in/out from the PDM tool while the file is open in Solidworks or edrawings. Then we had one guy that thought he found a loop hole and was manually changing the read only flag on the file. Then he complained about PDM loosing his work.

PDM server edits and saves the files when it needs to match the db reference info without user intervention.
That said the date the physical file was updated and the date the version in the pdm was edited are a slightly different concept. so I expect those date to be different.

user A check out the file, edits and check in = date of the lastest VERSION edit in the pdm system

user B moves the file user A edited to another folder. PDM server writes the new references inside the file = date of the latest FILE edit on the server disk

Seems a bit strange behavior that user can check out file that is released.

I think this is just a terminology difference with the third party PDM system we use, I am not familiar with SolidWorks PDM but I believe this one works a bit differently. In this system checking out just means getting a read only copy of the file onto you local hard drive. This file could be work in progress or released. If it is work in progress you then need get an Edit Lock on it to make changes, if it is not work in progress it can't be edited until it is Revised.

Thanks for the replies, will see what our VAR comes up with.

acmall wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 3:15 am I think this is just a terminology difference with the third party PDM system we use, I am not familiar with SolidWorks PDM but I believe this one works a bit differently. In this system checking out just means getting a read only copy of the file onto you local hard drive. This file could be work in progress or released. If it is work in progress you then need get an Edit Lock on it to make changes, if it is not work in progress it can't be edited until it is Revised.

Thanks for the replies, will see what our VAR comes up with.

In SW PDM if you have the necessary permissions (e.g. administrator group) you can check out a released file (for maintenance or other corrections) edit it and check it in (overwriting its latest version to avoid a nee file version to be created).

What is not seen by many users is that the server side is writing the files all the time (I think with a mechanism similar to the document API) to update the metadata and file references. Even if you do not have the permission to write a file it does not mean that moving a parent or a child will not cause a writing operation performed by the PDM system while your user is logged in and moving or renaming files around the vault.