<style>
/* Changing the layout to use less space for mobiles */
@media screen and (max-device-width: 480px), screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) {
    #email-body { min-width: 30em !important; }
    #email-page { padding: 8px !important; }
    #email-banner { padding: 8px 8px 0 8px !important; }
    #email-avatar { margin: 1px 8px 8px 0 !important; padding: 0 !important; }
    #email-fields { padding: 0 8px 8px 8px !important; }
    #email-gutter { width: 0 !important; }
}
</style>
<div id="email-body">
<table id="email-wrap" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color:#f0f0f0;color:#000000;width:100%;">
    <tr valign="top">
        <td id="email-page" style="padding:16px !important;">
            <table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color:#ffffff;border:1px solid #bbbbbb;color:#000000;width:100%;">
                <tr valign="top">
                    <td bgcolor="#003366" style="background-color:#003366;color:#ffffff;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:1;"><img src="http://jira.qos.ch/s/en_USet69y6/731/19/_/jira-logo-scaled.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:top;" /></td>
                </tr><tr valign="top">
    <td id="email-banner" style="padding:32px 32px 0 32px;">
        
                
        
        
            <table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" style="width:100%;">
    <tr valign="top">
        <td style="color:#505050;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;padding:0;">
                                        <img id="email-avatar" src="http://jira.qos.ch/secure/useravatar?avatarId=10122" alt="" height="48" width="48" border="0" align="left" style="padding:0;margin: 0 16px 16px 0;" />
                        <div id="email-action" style="padding: 0 0 8px 0;font-size:12px;line-height:18px;">
                                    <a class="user-hover" rel="det_bette_egern" id="email_det_bette_egern" href="http://jira.qos.ch/secure/ViewProfile.jspa?name=det_bette_egern" style="color:#326ca6;">Bjarke Bisgaard Blendstrup</a>
     created <img src="http://jira.qos.ch/images/icons/bug.gif" height="16" width="16" border="0" align="absmiddle" alt="Bug"> <a style='color:#326ca6;text-decoration:none;' href='http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LOGBACK-777'>LOGBACK-777</a>
            </div>
                        <div id="email-summary" style="font-size:16px;line-height:20px;padding:2px 0 16px 0;">
                <a style='color:#326ca6;text-decoration:none;' href='http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LOGBACK-777'><strong>Cleanup of old log files will delete newest files also when using a cyclic file name format</strong></a>
            </div>
                    </td>
    </tr>
</table>
    </td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
    <td id="email-fields" style="padding:0 32px 32px 32px;">
        <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="padding:0;text-align:left;width:100%;" width="100%">
            <tr valign="top">
                <td id="email-gutter" style="width:64px;white-space:nowrap;"></td>
                <td>
                    <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
                        <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Issue Type:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
                <img src="http://jira.qos.ch/images/icons/bug.gif" height="16" width="16" border="0" align="absmiddle" alt="Bug">        Bug
    </td>
</tr>                        <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Affects Versions:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
                    1.0.9            </td>
</tr>
                        <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Assignee:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
                                        <a class="user-hover" rel="logback-dev@qos.ch" id="email_logback-dev@qos.ch" href="http://jira.qos.ch/secure/ViewProfile.jspa?name=logback-dev%40qos.ch" style="color:#326ca6;">Logback dev list</a>
                </td>
</tr>                                                <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Components:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
                    logback-core            </td>
</tr>
                        <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Created:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
        19/Dec/12 10:07 AM
    </td>
</tr>                        <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Description:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
        I tried to create a logback configuration for logging a new file every hour and keeping the last three hours worth of logfiles. Problem is that when restarting my app the old log files are deleted even though they are not yet 3 hours old.
<br/>

<br/>
This is my appender:
<br/>
  <appender name="FILE" class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender">
<br/>
            <rollingPolicy class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy">
<br/>
              <fileNamePattern>/tmp/logback-%d{HH}.log</fileNamePattern>
<br/>
              <append>true</append>
<br/>
              <cleanHistoryOnStart>true</cleanHistoryOnStart>
<br/>
              <maxHistory>3</maxHistory>
<br/>
            </rollingPolicy>
<br/>
                 <encoder>
<br/>
                        <pattern>%-4relative [%thread] %-5level %class %line - %msg%n</pattern>
<br/>
                </encoder>
<br/>
        </appender>
<br/>

<br/>
The problem is that the DefaultArchiveRemover will on first clean (when lastHeartBeat == UNINITIALIZED) go back 14 * 24 hours and delete the old files. But since the filename only contains the hour, it will cycle through all values 0-23 and delete all the logfiles, new and old:
<br/>

<br/>
If clean runs first time at 12:00:00, it will delete like this:
<br/>
/tmp/logback-08.log (09 through 11 preserved by the periodOffsetForDeletionTarget offset)
<br/>
/tmp/logback-07.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-06.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-05.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-04.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-03.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-02.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-01.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-00.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-23.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-22.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-21.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-20.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-19.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-18.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-17.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-16.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-15.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-14.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-13.log
<br/>
/tmp/logback-12.log --> the newest logfile!
<br/>
/tmp/logback-11.log --> and these three
<br/>
/tmp/logback-10.log --> which should be
<br/>
/tmp/logback-09.log --> preserved by maxHistory=3
<br/>

<br/>

    </td>
</tr>
                                                <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Environment:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
        not env specific.
    </td>
</tr>
                                                <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Project:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
        <a style="color:#326ca6;" href="http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LOGBACK">logback</a>
    </td>
</tr>                        <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Labels:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
                    rollingFileappender
            </td>
</tr>
                        <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Priority:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
                <img src="http://jira.qos.ch/images/icons/priority_minor.gif" height="16" width="16" border="0" align="absmiddle" alt="Minor">        Minor
    </td>
</tr>                        <tr valign="top">
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 10px 10px 0;white-space:nowrap;">
        <strong style="font-weight:normal;color:#505050;">Reporter:</strong>
    </td>
    <td style="color:#000000;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;padding:0 0 10px 0;width:100%;">
                                        <a class="user-hover" rel="det_bette_egern" id="email_det_bette_egern" href="http://jira.qos.ch/secure/ViewProfile.jspa?name=det_bette_egern" style="color:#326ca6;">Bjarke Bisgaard Blendstrup</a>
                </td>
</tr>                                                                    </table>
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
    </td>
</tr>













            </table>
        </td><!-- End #email-page -->
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    <tr valign="top">
        <td style="color:#505050;font-family:Arial,FreeSans,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10px;line-height:14px;padding: 0 16px 16px 16px;text-align:center;">
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</table><!-- End #email-wrap -->
</div><!-- End #email-body -->