FAQ: Why does the 'Last Modified' field in version manager show an incorrect date after a full compress?

Question

Why does the 'Last Modified' field in version manager show an incorrect date after a full compress?

Answer

After performing a compress of an ArcSDE enterprise geodatabase, the last modified field in the version manager in ArcGIS shows an incorrect date for the DEFAULT version.

This is a known limit with ArcGIS and does not cause any data loss or data corruption.

This happens because each version in an ArcSDE Enterprise Geodatabase references a state in the STATES table in the ArcSDE repository. A state has a property named closing_time representing the moment a state was closed. The last modified field in the version manager represents the closing_time for the state a version references. When a FULL compress updates the DEFAULT version to reference state zero, the state's closing_time is not updated to reflect the current moment.