SiteMatch and the Iyonix Y2.01K Bug

Iyonix users will by now be familiar with the bug that caused the real time clock to step forward to 2012 on 1st January 2010. This will not affect your web uploads until you fix the affected files. However as you will most likely want the computer to display the correct year you should take corrective action as soon as practicable.

First of all fix the bug. Various 'quick fix' workarounds have made available, but the permanent solution is to upgrade to RISC OS 5.16 which is available free for all Iyonix PCs running RISC OS 5.07 or later from RISC OS Open Ltd. A utility to reflash the ROMs is also available from the same site.

Having fixed the bug it is now necessary to correct the timestamps on any files that have been stamped with the incorrect time. Alan Wrigley has written a utility called Untardis that will do this for you. It can be downloaded from Alan's site.

The following procedure should be applied to SiteMatch on a site-by-site basis:

1. IF you have not done a Reset with SiteMatch while the bug was active no action is necessary.
2. IF you have changed some files don’t worry. When the timestamps are corrected they will still be flagged as changed.
3. IF you have changed some files AND done a Reset before the timestamps were corrected, then those files will show up as changed again after the timestamps are corrected. You can clear those changes simply by doing a Compare and Reset on the site.
4. IF (3) applies AND you have updated some files after the Reset, then you could end up with a mixture or genuine changes and false changes. If it’s not too late, Upload and Reset the site before correcting the timestamps, then do (3) afterwards. If you have already corrected the timestamps than you can use the Exclude facility to avoid uploading the false changes. If it's easier, Exclude the genuine changes, do a Reset and then a Compare.
5. IF you use physical media or fileshares to transfer files then you may need to use the Force filer option or correct or delete files on the transfer medium or destination which have future time stamps on them.

The worst that can happen is that you will upload some files twice. You will not miss genuine changes.

SiteMatch compares timestamps for equality only. It does not care whether a change is forwards or backwards.