Server time offset

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Your server time may be different from your local time, due to being in a different time zone (or a server that doesn't use daylight saving time). The server timezone offset is the difference between client local time and server time. Put another way, client local time is the server time plus the server timezone offset.

(http://www.crazydomains.com.au/help/ftp_filezilla.htm explains how to set your server offset.)

  1. In Site Manager, click the "Advanced" tab.
  2. At the bottom you will see, "Adjust server timezone offset"
    • You can enter hours and minutes (plus or minus)

By default the server timezone offset is set to zero for new sites. Here's how to determine the correct server timezone offset:

  1. Either create a dummy file on your local machine, or delete the server copy of a selected file. We'll call this your test file.
  2. Upload the test file and hit F5 to refresh the server directory listing. (Ideally the server copy would have the same timestamp as the test file. Unfortunately, even though I have "Transfer > Preserve timestamps of transferred files" enabled, this doesn't seem to work for me. Perhaps it's a server limitation. If timestamp preservation does work for you, then use the test file timestamp rather than current local time in the steps below.)
  3. If the server copy of the test file has the current local time as its timestamp, then your server timezone offset is set correctly. If it doesn't match (it will typically differ by whole hours), you'll need to adjust the server timezone offset. The correct value will be the signed difference between the current local time and the timestamp of the server copy of the test file. If the server timestamp is later than current local time, the offset should be negative. If the server timestamp is earlier than the current local time, the offset should be positive.
  4. Set the server timezone offset in the advanced tab of the site manager dialog, reconnect, and perform the above test again. This time, the server timestamp should match current local time.

Here's an example of setting the correct server timezone offset:

  1. I have a file named "index.html" in my local client. This file does not exist on the server. I am connected to the server with my current default 0 timezone offset.
  2. I upload index.html and hit refresh (F5).
  3. My current local time is 22:40 (10:40pm), but the server directory listing shows that index.html has a timestamp of 06:40 the next day. This is a different of 8 hours, 0 minutes. Because the server timestamp is later than my local time of 22:40, I will need a negative offset.
  4. I go back into the site manager, and set a server timezone offset of -8 hours, 0 minutes.
  5. On reconnecting to the site, I delete the server copy of index.html and re-upload. If the current local time is now 22:41, the server should list index.html with a now-correct timestamp of today, 22:41.