Indesign falsely flagging placed images as modified

[ArtScrollCreative]

Hi All.

Since I got my new M1 Mac Studio, many documents are reporting some placed images (so far mostly .ai)  as modified, although they have not been touched in years.

Same thing is happening with all the users in my group.

Files are stored on a Windows server using Acronis.

I dont use Extensis font manager, which was reported to be the cause of a similar problem in another thread  of 2018.

I've exported to idml, resaved or renamed the images, and tried placing them into brand new indesign documents. No dice. 

Any ideas?

Thanx.

[Bill Silbert]

I have seen this behavior happen as a result of the internal clock of the server being set for a different time zone than the local computers. Since, as you say, you're using a Windows server with Mac computers it seems possible that this is causing the issue.  Where is the server actually located? Is it in the same time zone? By the way, I've also seen this when the clocks get set for daylight savings time (or back again in the fall) when a Mac does not have "set the date and time automatically" chosen in the Date & Time section of System Preferences.

[Kasyan Servetsky · Accepted solution]

I remember I had this problem at my old job where we worked on MACs keeping the files on a Windows server. When I looked closer into the issue, I found out that there was a time difference of just a few milliseconds between a link’s modification date in InDesign and the actual date in Finder.

To solve this issue I used this script.

[ArtScrollCreative]

Thank you.

And I run  this script where? On every ID document with "modified" links? And after running it hopefully they should remain updated?

[Kasyan Servetsky]

1) Install the script. Assign a shortcut to it. Hit the shortcut with a document (with/without outdated links) open. If the doc has no outdated links, it doesn't hurt.
2) If links remain updated or not, depends on your server. Check the exact date: in Indy and Finder.

[Kasyan Servetsky]

It was many years ago, but as far as I remember, I did it — checked the exact time difference — like so:

Select a linked image (its container) with the Selection tool (black arrow) and run this script:

main();

function main() {
	var doc = app.activeDocument;
	var sel = app.selection[0];
	var link = sel.images[0].itemLink;
	var filePath = link.filePath;
	var linkXmp = link.linkXmp;
	var modificationDate = new Date(linkXmp.modificationDate);
	var time_1 = modificationDate.getTime();

	var file = new File(filePath);
	var modified = file.modified;
	var time_2 = modified.getTime();
	
	alert("time_1 = " + time_1 + " , time_2 = " + time_2);
}

It reports the number of milliseconds from January 1, 1970 00:00:00 till the modification date:

time_1 — for the link’s modification date stored in InDesign

time_2 — for the file’s actual modification date in Finder / Explorer

Note the small time difference: 1000 milliseconds.

I guess — but don’t know for sure — that InDesign has some tolerance value beyond which it will consider the link to be out of date.

In my case, it considers it to be normal despite the 1000 millisecs difference.

[Kasyan Servetsky]

I played with Attribute Changer and it seems when the time difference reaches 4 secs, InDesign marks the link as modified.

[ArtScrollCreative]

Just interesting as to why, in an ID document with over 100 images placed, it would affect only 2 of them...