Setting data and time automatically results in date/time 10d, 2h and 3m in the past (after battery being drained empty)

Question

Level 1

15 points

Setting data and time automatically results in date/time 10d, 2h and 3m in the past (after battery being drained empty)

Hi

After upgrading to 14.1 (and 14.1.1) my MacBook Pro will drain the battery completely while sleeping.

After the last drain I cannot set the date/time correctly automatically. It will always result in a date ~10 days in the past. No other hard-, software or environment changes made.

Forcing an update using the command line (sntp -sS time.apple.com) will result in a correct date/time for a period before reverting to the same ~10 days offset.

Setting the date/time to update automatically will immediately result in this behaviour. Have tried to look at logs in the console but nothing obvious.

Have tried and does not work:

Restarting
Resetting PRAM
Resetting SMC
Toggling WIFI/mobile phone for internet access
Toggling automatic/manual date/time
Change ntp server
Setting an invalid ntp server
Toggling location services

Currently running with time set manually and that seems to work but that is not a preferred solution.

Any ideas?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 14.1

Posted on Nov 14, 2023 2:44 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

74,208 points

Nov 22, 2023 2:08 AM in response to TMakai

The file is

/var/db/timed/com.apple.timed.plist

and you can remove it using the command that Postflight wrote in his post:

sudo rm /var/db/timed/com.apple.timed.plist

and then restarting.

Note: when you type the above command, you are asked for your password. Just type it (nothing appears as you type) and press enter.

Reply

Answer 2

Nov 15, 2023 1:55 AM in response to Stefan Haupt

Same problem here albeit with my date bouncing all the way back to 2019. Also no internet connection when my MacBook was on the wrong date. Tried command line 'sudo sntp -sS time.apple.com' and it would jump to correct date...for a while. Also after every restart with settings on automatic date/time it would show the wrong date/time again.

Contacted Apple support and had lengthy calls to figure out the problem and come up with a solution.

Tried the complete list of things done by the original poster above plus disk repair and reinstall of Sonoma via cmd-r. To no avail I might add.

What helped me was the following terminal line:

sudo rm /var/db/timed/com.apple.timed.plist

Time is now correct and after a restart stays correct for the time being.

Being no expert on terminal commands above mentioned command line is at own risk!

Reply