Troubleshooting 

Symantec (Norton) support site: 

http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/support_options.html 

McAfee support site: 

http://www.mcafeehelp.com 

Microsoft has complete instructions on how to disable the Internet Connection Firewall 

built into some versions of Windows XP.   

http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWSXP/home/using/howto/homenet/icf.asp 

Conserve Local File Time feature doesn t work 

properly when connected to Serv u FTP Server 

Problem 

When using CuteFTP (Home and Professional) to connect to Serv u, the "Conserve Local 

File Time" feature doesn t work properly. 

Cause 

The MDTM command is supposed to be used for retrieving a file s time from the server. 

However, CuteFTP and various other FTP clients use the MDTM command change (set) an 

uploaded file s timestamp as well. 

The official draft documenting the MDTM command (draft ietf ftpext mlst 16.txt) makes 

no provisions for using the MDTM command to set the file time stamp, so various clients 

and servers have ended up implementing the command differently. 

The typical command syntax is MDTM YYYYMMDDHHMMSS FILENAME, where the 

HHMMSS is either the client s actual local time zone, or in the case of some FTP clients, 

GMT (Greenwich Meridian Time), which mimics the retrieve behavior of MDTM as 

documented in section 2.3 of the afore mentioned IETF draft. 

A couple servers, such as Serv u, have extended the MDTM command even further, adding 

a time zone parameter to the end of the MDTM command, as follows: MDTM 

YYYYMMDDHHMMSS[+ TZ] FILENAME. 

CuteFTP does not support this proprietary [+ TZ] parameter. Also, CuteFTP sends the 

local time for the HHMMSS portion of the MDTM command sequence, not the GMT time. 

Unfortunately, Serv u (and potentially a couple other FTP servers) expect the time to be sent 

in GMT, and automatically adjust the time for the file, causing it to be different than what 

the client expected.  

Example 

CuteFTP retrieves a listing. File time shows 8:55 AM:

 rw rw rw    1 user     group       20249 May 14 08:55 

Reports.cfc 

261