Windows Overwritting Problem- File Names

[dknguyen]

Has anyone encountered the problem where if you save something (for me it's internet explorer) and overwrite a previous file, the file remains unchanged. HOWEVER, as soon as you change the file name to something else then the file's contents are what you saved. If you change the file name back to the original name when it was overwritten, then the file contents return to the old version. CHange the name to some new name, and once again the files are what they were supposed to be.

The actual file I access when I open it (a Internet Explorer archive *.mht file in my case) depends on what the file name is.

UPDATE- This has only been happening with files in a particular folder. if I copy the file to another location (regardless of the name it currently has) the copied file at the new location will have the correct updated contents)

UPDATE- CHanging the name of the folder in question seems to cause all the files within to open to be the correct, most recent files. CHanging the folder name back to what it was before reintroduces the problem.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

What is the name of the folder when it doesn't work?.

 

[dknguyen]

The name is "Molex".

UPDATE- I have overwritten over the same file several times with different names. It seems that (for a single file), once you overwrite the file to a unique file name X, then as long as the filename is X, it will always access those contents, regardless of how many times you overwrite it with something else, at any other time. The contents first written to a "filename" will always be accessed as long as the file has that filename. SO I can basically access 10 different versions of it as long as I changed it to a unique file name that has never been overwritten before. To access the file, I simply change it to that name and open it.

UPDATE: I cannot recreate the problem with Notepad- only Internet Explorer. Also the problem is not local to the folder. It will occur anywhere and everywhere that I try it with Internet Explorer (both 6 and 7). Another thing is that the problem seems to have lessened, since now if I keep reloading the file into the same window (via dragging the file into the browser) it will keep opening the same wrong files. However, if I refresh the browser then the correct file will appear, and the file will behave correctly from thereon in (including future openings of that particular file, as long as I don't overwrite it or everything starts all over again). But as long as I do not click refresh in the browser, future openings of the file under that same name will continue to display the wrong thing.

UPDATE: It seems that as closing down all browser windows and opening a brand new one will also correct things until the next overwrite. (ie. I've been dragging the file into the browser to open them as I test since it's a pain to keep on closing the browser. However, I am pretty sure this is new since I've run into this problem several months ago and forgot about it. I don't ever remember a shutting down the browswer or refresing the window ever fixing anything.

 

[Cabwood]

Sounds like Internet Explorer is loading the file from it's cache, and not from the latest copy of the file on your disk.

Solutions I can think of:
1) Clear the cache and reload (Tools->Options->Something).
2) Stop caching in Internet Explorer. Check the options - maybe you can do this for local 'sites' only.
3) If whatever page you are opening is a script like PHP or ASP, have the script send headers to the browser to avoid caching.
4) I think Ctrl+F5 or Shift+F5 in IE causes a page refresh, but not from the cache - that is, it reloads the file from its source.

 

[dknguyen]

Sounds like Internet Explorer is loading the file from it's cache, and not from the latest copy of the file on your disk.

Solutions I can think of:
1) Clear the cache and reload (Tools->Options->Something).
2) Stop caching in Internet Explorer. Check the options - maybe you can do this for local 'sites' only.
3) If whatever page you are opening is a script like PHP or ASP, have the script send headers to the browser to avoid caching.
4) I think Ctrl+F5 or Shift+F5 in IE causes a page refresh, but not from the cache - that is, it reloads the file from its source.

Spot on. Thanks. I never bothered to check the settings about IE looking for "stored" pages. It was a bit disconcerting since this was my archived files I was looking at and not just some ordinary files. I wasn't sure if it was something with the secondary harddrive all this stuff was being stored on or not.

 

[Sceadwian]

That kind of behavior could only occur in a cacheing system, it's not possible on any file system I know of.