MacBook keeps messing up time

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Level 1

17 points

MacBook keeps messing up time

My macbook air 2019 keeps messing up my time, sometimes date.

I have restarted it, it is completely up to date, I have tried setting it automatically and as soon as I do that or turn that off and on it goes to the wrong time. when I manually set the time it eventually messes up the time again. this happens when my laptop is plugged in and when it is not.

i have entered this command in terminal: sudo sntp -sS time.apple.com / sudo sntp -sS in.pool.ntp.org

this fixes it temporarily but then it happens again. any solutions?

seems like it started happening after software update but I’m not positive.

unrelated side note: posting this question from my iPhone because I wasn’t able to on the MacBook. Keeps saying session expired and I need to log back in right when I try. Happens in chrome and safari

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.1

Posted on Nov 27, 2023 8:36 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Bearsfan213 Author

Level 1

17 points

Nov 29, 2023 9:26 AM in response to Shubham_soneja94

This seems to have solved my issue, for now at least. Will check tomorrow or later today and see if it stays.

Shut down your computer and disconnect all USB devices (except wired keyboards).
Press the power button to turn on your Mac.
Immediately press and hold the Option, Command, P, and R keys on your keyboard. You need to press this key combination before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold down these keys for 20 seconds, during which time your Mac will appear to restart.
Release the keys and let your Mac finish rebooting.

This resets PRAM. Some of your user settings will also reset, such as keyboard layout, mouse tracking, startup disk, date and time, and volume. Check System Preferences and adjust anything that was changed.

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Answer 2

Nov 28, 2023 12:22 AM in response to pavlosymonov

I have the same Mac and same issue

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Answer 3

May 28, 2024 3:24 AM in response to Bearsfan213

I have the same issue with MacBook pro 2019 16". A few months earlier it was more often, nowadays less. First, I thought it's a software bug, but my current assumption is the charger/cold. I have two chargers, both are dell 65W but one is 5-6 years old and the otherone is new. If the new is connected I don't remember exactly, but I think I had no problem. By the way it's very annoying... during the winter after I came back from cold even with full charged battery, the time was kept only for seconds or a few minutes.. But I doubt, I think this model doesn't have pram battery, only a normal battery. So, in the hardest periods with this issue, I was running a while loop to sync with ntp servers... Better than nothing if you have to work somehow with this machine.

So if someone interested in:

sudo su -
while :; do sntp -sS time.apple.com ; sleep 60; done

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Answer 4

Bearsfan213 Author

Level 1

17 points

Nov 30, 2023 4:30 PM in response to pavlosymonov

this has fixed my issue. no problems for the last two days.

This seems to have solved my issue, for now at least. Will check tomorrow or later today and see if it stays.

Shut down your computer and disconnect all USB devices (except wired keyboards).
Press the power button to turn on your Mac.
Immediately press and hold the Option, Command, P, and R keys on your keyboard. You need to press this key combination before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold down these keys for 20 seconds, during which time your Mac will appear to restart.
Release the keys and let your Mac finish rebooting.

This resets PRAM. Some of your user settings will also reset, such as keyboard layout, mouse tracking, startup disk, date and time, and volume. Check System Preferences and adjust anything that was changed.

Reply

Answer 5

Bearsfan213 Author

Level 1

17 points

Nov 27, 2023 2:28 PM in response to pavlosymonov

I’ve read that it could be a pram battery issue but I’m not sure if that’s the case for me since it happens frequently even while my laptop is plugged in and I’m using it. For instance I was using it today while plugged in, reset the time with the terminal command, and when I looked at the time after a few hours or so it was behind by about 5 minutes. I think it would use the normal battery while plugged in and not sleeping so I’m really not sure what’s going on. Also my laptop isn’t that old, would be surprised if it’s a pram issue when everything else seems to be working fine and the other info normally stored through it doesn’t seem to be affected.

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Answer 6

Nov 27, 2023 2:19 PM in response to Bearsfan213

I have the same problem, only I have Macbook Pro 2019, macOS 14.1.1

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Answer 7

Bearsfan213 Author

Level 1

17 points

Nov 29, 2023 9:30 AM in response to pavlosymonov

This seems to have solved my issue, for now at least. Will check tomorrow or later today and see if it stays.

Shut down your computer and disconnect all USB devices (except wired keyboards).

Press the power button to turn on your Mac.

Immediately press and hold the Option, Command, P, and R keys on your keyboard. You need to press this key combination before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.

Hold down these keys for 20 seconds, during which time your Mac will appear to restart.

Release the keys and let your Mac finish rebooting.

This resets PRAM. Some of your user settings will also reset, such as keyboard layout, mouse tracking, startup disk, date and time, and volume. Check System Preferences and adjust anything that was changed.

Reply