clock reset

This just happened to me. I'm wondering if it has something to do with shutting down my Mac with a DVD still in my MacBook Pro. I've left DVDs in before, but this one was one my DVD player recorded from an ancient VHS player versus a store bought DVD movie. I denied access to the following apps that requested access:

and rather than trying to connect to the wireless first, I first manually updated the clock and date. Then the wireless connection showed up automatically with the password saved. I then rebooted and adjusted the clock back to automatically updating, and it is fine. The only explanation I can think of is that the DVD has a weird date stamp because it came from an old VHS to a 5 year old DVD recorder and it affected the time and date when I re-booted my computer this morning...we shall see if it occurs again...

Just wanted to chime in that while MBPs may be the main culprit, my iMac fell prey today to the same issue. Firefox was being very slow, so I restarted the computer (and let it install updates at the same time), and voila-- the date/time and WiFi and MobilMe error messages popped up. I really hope this is not some virus.

Joining the club. I have a MacBook, not Pro, battery at 83%. Turned the laptop on this morning and got the "before 2008" warning and wireless problems, then ever iCal reminder for the past 6 weeks. A simple restart seemed to fix it, but I, too, am very curious what happened.

Hi...I'm curious, when this occurred to everyone else, did any of you have anything in your CD/DVD drives, USB ports or an external hard drive attached? I've shut down my computer before with CD/DVD/USB/Hard Drives attached, but the time my computer did the strange clock reset, I had a home recorded DVD with a weird date stamp in the drive. I'm thinking of possibly repeating this process to see if it happens again, but part of me doesn't want to deal with it!!! Let me know if this might be the issue, and I'll try again and see what happens!!

Mine had nothing in the drive and nothing connected to it.

PS: the wireless issues will occur when the internal clock is set incorrectly...it's not an issue with the wireless itself. You just need to get the clock set right again (see my post on 6/26 and Rebecca's on 7/16)...I did mine manually and it looks like she just needed to restart. btw: daniellefromsandiego...I really don't think it's a virus. I've had zero problems since 6/26 and if it was a virus apple would have done something about it because they don't tolerate viruses (bad for their rep) and it would be in the news. It just seems to be happening to a few mac users and I'm trying to figure out if it has something to do with the info I posted in my post above.

@Rebecca...too bad...thought I was onto something there! At least yours only required a restart - most of the posters here had a more difficult time! Have a lovely day!

Thanks, yellow333. You're prob right this is not a virus. I was just worried because of how the computer acted very slow and nonresponsive before I restarted and then experienced all of these issues. But, knock on wood, I haven't had any issues since that last time.

As you asked about anything being in my drives, I don't believe I had anything in the DVD drive. I also didn't have any external drives (USB or otherwise) plugged in at the time... only thing plugged in is the keyboard and mouse. I'm curious to find out what this is... it has been going on for so long for many people, and it seems like there won't be answer to the problem other than it being an unspecified glitch.

def. not a virus.

but certainly a widespread problem.

my macbook pro experiences this every time the battery dies....and it is a real pain when you are somewhere where you don't have the WEP password anymore....essentially you become locked out of all your previously "known" networks until you reenter the password...

apple...please fix this!

why does this have to be part of the mac "experience"?

Same, Same - Went to wake up my Mac-Pro and found it out of juice. Had left it open and not connected to power. Not something I do routinely, but have done several times before. I plugged in, powered on and received clock error(it had reset to Dec 1980-something) then received wifi connection error(network not available). Seems to work fine after reset but this has never happened before in the year that I’ve had the Mac. I’m not sure how many times I’ve run it completely out of juice before, but guessing more then a dozen without these issues. I had no CD’s or external devices plugged in. Wasn’t running anystrange software or downloads. Probably had Safari and Entourage for Mac running in background – but this would be typical.

…Strange!!!!

@yellow33 -- yes! This just happened to me last night. I left my MacBook Pro unplugged and running, though it's set to go to sleep mode in 10 minutes. A USB I use for backing up documents was in the port. Fell asleep, and next morning I encountered the lost WEP password and clock reset. I have unintentionally left it unplugged and drained the battery overnight on a handful of occassions in the past year, but this is the first time this malfunction has occurred.

Here's an explanation of part of what is happening. For the paranoid (myself included) it was reassuring to learn that this wasn't caused by malware.

(The following applies to 10.5 but may not be true of other OS X versions.) Mac OS X responds poorly when the system clock gets reset. The date defaults to December 31, 2000. This effectively invalidates Apple's code signing of system binaries: configd, mDNSResponder, krb5kdc, etc. Code signing is how the firewall identifies essential system binaries. Unfortunately, the firewall no longer recognizes them. It not only prompts the user for permission about essential OS X services, but it is also forced to _resign_ the binaries with an ad-hoc certificate. For additional information, see this answer to a related discussion: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1314540?answerId=8874116022#8874116022

The system binaries can be repaired by running a Mac OS X combo update. Download the latest combo update for your operating system (and architecture). For me, that was Mac OS X 10.5.8: http://support.apple.com/downloads/Mac_OS_X_10_5_8_Combo_Update

Although it is simple (if time-consuming) to repair the operating system, the underlying problem remains. Something is causing the system clock to be reset. For some, an SMC reset seems to do the trick. In my case, the root cause was a failing backup battery. Fortunately, my laptop (MacBook 13-inch, Late 2008) was still under warranty. They replaced the backup battery (item number 922-8266), and now everything is working fine.

Well, glad to hear this issue isn't isolated, yet again I rather not have to deal with this issue. Last evening I was typing along on a paper in a web page on my college site & saving to a html file so I would not lose the data & WHOOF! the computer shut down all of the sudden, no warning; I still had about 1 hour left of power so I know it was not the issue. Thought I lost everything, yet had resorted to my saved html file and showed some recovered files in the trash. My late MBP 2008 never did this before & generally have no issues, although lately more and more weird things keep cropping up. Just went to Apple store 2x in last month. Warranty still good for another 2 months- so I guess I better get these addressed before . . .

I had no other USB items plugged in, have trash set to secure empty-which is a problem with a slow computer anyway. Recently installed Win7 on the VMWare Fusion 3 side.

When system re-booted, clock reset, WIFI saved pref's were GONE, otherwise I have not noticed any other issue.

Running: MAC OS X-SNOW LEAPORD latest updates . . .

This very same issue has started to happen on my 2010 MacBook Air 13"

Clock resets, Wifi password is forgotten and I get some popup about mDNSresponder and configd needing to access my fireware or something.

Also my Guest account doesn't work now either.

Doing a permissions repair and hope that solves the issue. But something very odd happening here.

This just happened to me as well but with my imac. I usually leave it on most of the time, however last night I decided to shut it off. When I turned it one my clock reset, my wifi password was forgotten, the computer is really slow now and my ical keeps emailing me reminders for events that happened over 2 years ago. does anyone have any ideas about why this is happening?