Mac clock shows wrong time in top corner

Question

Level 1

82 points

Mac clock shows wrong time in top corner

Occasionally, when I boot up my Mac the clock up top shows the wrong time

The only way to get it to snap back to current, I need to go into preferences, and Date & Time

Then magically it switches back to the correct time

Does anyone know what's wrong?

I just want the correct time to be displayed at once instead of just some of the times

Message was edited by: BlueX

17" 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Sep 27, 2008 9:24 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 28, 2008 1:29 AM in response to BlueX

in date & time, have you checked to see if 'set date & time automatically' is checked or not?

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Answer 2

BlueX Author

Level 1

82 points

Sep 28, 2008 11:25 AM in response to discostu514

Yes, it's always been checked and in the correct time zone

The problem is just that whenever I sign back into Mac, the clock displays the wrong time unless I go to Date & Time

I change nothing in preferences, I just visit the page and the time updates

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Answer 3

jbornia

Level 1

5 points

Sep 28, 2008 9:50 PM in response to BlueX

are using bootcamp to start up into windows xp?

the windows time management system is different from OS X's, so when you boot up into OS X, the time is messed up. The only time that OS X seemingly syncs with the time server is when you open up the preferences. I could never find a fix and just sucked it up.

Hope this helps

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Answer 4

Sep 28, 2008 9:57 PM in response to jbornia

yes, i have noticed this as well - particularly with dual booting my PC with linux and windows.

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Answer 5

BlueX Author

Level 1

82 points

Sep 29, 2008 11:40 AM in response to jbornia

Yeah, that's probably it

This problem seems to only occur when I boot up after running XP for some time

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Answer 6

BlueX Author

Level 1

82 points

Oct 3, 2008 12:21 PM in response to BlueX

Look's like Booting up back from Boot Camp caused it

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Answer 7

Oct 6, 2008 10:20 AM in response to BlueX

I have that problem. I talked to one of the guys from an Apple store and he started wanting to reprogram my Mac. But it actually is just a problem with BootCamp. Just keep the current time on whichever you use the most (Mac/Win/Linux). Maybe if we keep telling Apple they might try to resolve the issue with a future update.

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Answer 8

Oct 24, 2008 5:13 AM in response to BlueX

No matter what I do, the time reverts back to GMT. I live in California, PDT, and this is frustrating. I uncheck the automatic button and I can set it correctly, but then it goes back to GMT.

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Answer 9

Nov 29, 2008 12:33 PM in response to Ron Bottorff

Ron, here is the answer, I found it at:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/119013-problem-computer-t ime-after-using-migration-assistant.html

you need to delete the folder /etc/localtime.

to find this folder you must be able to see the "invisible files"

to see these invisible files you can download Invisibles at:

InVisibles 1.5 software download - Mac OS X - VersionTracker

once you do that go to your root folder and look for the folder etc and open that and look for the folder localtime, delete that folder and restart.

you should be able to go into your date and time pref and fix the time.

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