Hazel can't find date

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Hazel can't find date Sat Nov 06, 2021 8:43 pm • by nefm
My husband's paychecks contain 4 dates in the following order: 1. the date the check was issued, 2. the beginning of the pay period, 3. the end of the pay period, and 4. the pay date (which is always the same as the date the check was issued).

I had a rule where Hazel would find the first date and use it to rename and move the pdf into a folder based on that date. Now it no longer sees or recognizes any of the dates, even though in the rule editor (where it says they aren't there) I can see them, they show up in Preview, and when I copy and paste them from Preview into a text document, they are there. On the text document, the dates appear in a different order, with the date the check was issued appearing last, but they all still appear.

The file name when I download is Paycheck_2021-09-02_2021-10-01.pdf where the two dates are the beginning and end of the pay period, and I have tried using match to work with that, but have not been successful.

What I want is to rename it with the date first and then my husband's name, like this: 2021-09-02_HusbandPaycheck.pdf and move it into a folder called HusbandPaystubs2021.

Any suggestions appreciated. Thank you.
nefm
 
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Re: Hazel can't find date Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:18 am • by Mr_Noodle
Are you using automatic date detection? If so, try turning that off and specifying a pattern. If you still can't get that to work, post your pattern.
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Re: Hazel can't find date Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:53 pm • by nefm
Hi,

I did turn off automatic detection and posted the pattern in the file name as year-month-day, specifying 4 digit year and 2 digit month and day. The file name downloads as: Paycheck_2021-11-02_2021-12-01.pdf

I tried having it match the contents as well, where there is a slash (/) instead of a dash (-) but that didn't work either.
nefm
 
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Re: Hazel can't find date Wed Nov 10, 2021 2:50 pm • by Mr_Noodle
Can you post the full pattern you are using?
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Re: Hazel can't find date Thu Nov 11, 2021 4:20 pm • by nefm
For some reason my previous reply didn't post. Here's hoping this one does.

The full pattern I am using is Name matches Paycheck_ | StartDate | _ | EndDate | ...

Automatic date detection is disabled for both start and end date. The paycheck downloads with a file name of Paycheck_2021-11-02_2021-12-01.pdf

I am not sure why Hazel can't read the contents the way it used to, when I had it read and rename the file based on the paydate included. Here is a copy/paste from the paycheck with the personal info removed. You can see that there are 4 dates there. Since this is the November paycheck, I would prefer to use the 3rd or 4th date, but Hazel doesn't see any dates at all.

PAY Hours Rate Current YTD
TAXES Current YTD
DEDUCTIONS Current YTD
SUMMARY Current YTD
Total Pay
Taxes
Deductions
Net Pay
$XXXX
$XXX
$XXX
$XXX
Federal Income Tax
Salary
Social Security
****This is not a check. *****Advice of deposit only****
Medicare
CA Income Tax
CA State Disability Ins
$XXX
XXX
XXX
XXX
XXX
-
XXX
EMPLOYER
XXX
Acct#....XXX:
XXX
12/01/2021
***NON-NEGOTIABLE***
11/02/2021
11/01/2021
XXX
11/01/2021
- XXX
MEMO:
EMPLOYEE
XXX
Period Beginning
Period Ending:
Pay Date:
NAME
NAME
NAME
Suite XXX
SS#: ...XXX
ADDRESS
ADDRESS
ADDRESS
COMPANY
ADDRESS
ADDRESS
ADDRESS
XXX
XXX
XXX
XXX
XXX
NET PAY:
PAY PERIOD
$XXX
$XXX
nefm
 
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Re: Hazel can't find date Fri Nov 12, 2021 11:48 am • by Mr_Noodle
I'm not sure if it's because of how you formatted it, but you should get rid of the spaces in between each item. Also, can you post the patterns you used for each date?
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Re: Hazel can't find date Fri Nov 12, 2021 12:45 pm • by nefm
Hi,

There are no spaces between the items in the pattern. I just did that for ease of reading. I apologize for the confusion. The full pattern is: Name matches Paycheck_StartDate_EndDate...

The pattern for both dates in the file name is: 1999-12-31.

When I was trying to match the contents, I used the date pattern 12/31/1999, but as mentioned above, that didn't work either.
nefm
 
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Re: Hazel can't find date Fri Nov 12, 2021 2:02 pm • by smm
nefm wrote:The pattern for both dates in the file name is: 1999-12-31


Are you looking for the dates in the name, or in the contents of the file?
smm
 
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Re: Hazel can't find date Fri Nov 12, 2021 4:15 pm • by nefm
My original rule looked for the date in the contents of the file. When that stopped working and I was unable to fix it, I tried setting up the rule to look for the date in the name. It doesn't really matter to me where it finds it. What I want is to rename it to Year-Month-Day_HusbandPaycheck.pdf and move it to a folder based on the new name. For example, 2021-11-01_HusbandPaycheck.pdf.
nefm
 
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Joined: Sat Jul 12, 2014 2:35 pm

Re: Hazel can't find date Mon Nov 15, 2021 11:24 am • by Mr_Noodle
At this point, maybe it's better if you email in to support, attaching an export of your rule and a sample file.
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