Warning: modified in the future.

Question

I am getting the warning Warning: sendmailpm.jsp modified in the future. What does this mean?

Answer 1

Someone probably modified the file, then changed the time on the server. Try checking to see what time your box is set to and make sure it's correct. If it is, you can probably ignore that warning without any side effects.

Answer 2

You aren't allowed to modify anything in the past if doing so might change the future. You might cause a temporal paradox, which could corrupt the time stream and cause our entire reality to cease to exist.

Please do not modify that file.

Answer 3

JSP files are compiled. Many servers also allow you to replace the files on a running server. It then compares the timestamp of the compiled source and the timestamp of the jsp file to determine if it needs to recompile.

If the file is dated in the future, the jsp file will always be newer than the class. This gives you a warning.

Check the timestamp on the file. Perhaps someone created it on a computer with an incorrect clock, and now it appears to be "created in the future". Or perhaps the server has the incorrect date (check timezone settings).

Are there remote file servers involved? Clock drift between a web server and a file server can cause this error too.

To diagnose this further, you'd have to give us some hints - what jsp server, what OS, what filesystem?

Answer 4

JSPs are compiled on-the-fly to servlets. The servlet container compares the "last modified" dates of both to see if the JSP has been changed and the servlet needs to be updated. A "last modified" date in the future indicates that something is wrong with the system clock, which is relevant because it could disrupt the abovementioned mechanism, leading to servlets that are not updated.