System clock is incorrect MacBook Pro

Thanks very much for this. I couldn’t for the life of me remember safe mode. Must have tried ALL the others!

Because I can’t leave a thing like this unsolved, I kept trying. By now the poor thing had connected itself to the network and reset its time and date, but the message saying it was wrong remained. I managed to open the Activity app by typing into Search, and could scroll up and down with the arrow keys, but couldn’t quit anything; although I could type into dialogue boxes Command-Q didn’t work. I ended up connecting a mouse to the laptop in desperation because the trackpad wasn’t responding.

That gave me the ability to quit stuff and close the huge number of open windows.

I was then able to do a proper restart. Still no trackpad.

A bit of searching suggested that the trackpad was “stuck” and a deep click was required. Leaning hard on the trackpad for some seconds cured that issue.

Essentially it couldn’t “click” so it was unable to do anything. The freeze seems to have been the result of this.

So, the laptop is working 🤞 atm and its next hiccup will bring on a safe mode restart. No intention of sending it for recycling yet!

Addendum: The clock in the top menu bar eventually sets to the right day and time - it takes a minute or two - but still nothing works.

MacBook Pro is over 10 years old.