Clock runs slow when I leave iMac on all the time

Apologies, somehow I missed your previous note about the reboot. Sorry to hear it's not working out still. I've been taking a look at the other steps I took in the previous case. I'm trying to reproduce the steps on another machine so that I can offer a clean solution for all of us. When I have something to try I'll post again. Best, Tim

I'm sorry not to have something more grounded in logic, but the following worked for me.

I managed to reproduce the result where pacemaker showed no updates in the residue value, by changing the contents of the /var/db/ntp.drift file to either of 0, 1, -100 and -10. I then set it to the previous value, -25.686 in my case, and the residue value resumed the changes that I was expecting to see. This "magic number" is unsatisfactory of course and almost certain not to work on another machine, but for now all I can suggest is a set of small changes around that number to see if that kicks it into shape.

I've seen other postings about replacing the ntpd altogether, I have no reason to doubt they would work in the right context.

To reset the /var/db/ntp.drift file, do the following:

cd Desktop

mkdir time-fix

cd time-fix

cp /var/db/ntp.drift ntp.drift.backup

echo ‘-25.686' > ntp.drift

sudo cp ntp.drift /var/db/ntp.drift

sudo killall ntpd

sudo killall pacemaker

sudo /usr/libexec/pacemaker -v

as before, this makes a backup of the file in a folder on the desktop, creates the replacement file and copies it into place. The killall commands restart the ntpd and pacemaker processes to ensure the file is re-read, although they might not be necessary in all cases.

The output I would hope to see would show a changing residue, e.g.:

Oxygen:~ timjervis$ sudo /usr/libexec/pacemaker -v

Feb 4 11:02:14 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Info>: power status check: using external power

Feb 4 11:02:14 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Info>: created file monitor for /var/db/ntp.drift

Feb 4 11:02:14 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Info>: interval = 1 seconds, tolerance = 0.000000, drift = -25.686000

Feb 4 11:02:14 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue 0.000000 delta -25

Feb 4 11:02:15 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.686000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:16 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.372000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:17 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.058000 delta -25

Feb 4 11:02:18 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.744000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:19 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.430000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:20 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.116000 delta -25

Feb 4 11:02:21 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.802000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:22 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.488000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:23 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.174000 delta -25

Feb 4 11:02:24 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.860000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:25 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.546000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:26 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.232000 delta -25

Feb 4 11:02:27 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.918000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:28 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.604000 delta -26

Feb 4 11:02:29 Oxygen.local pacemaker[835] <Debug>: drift -25.686000 residue -0.290000 delta -25

Aside from trying a few different values for the ntp.drift file, I don't have much more to contribute I'm afraid. I tried a few alternative ways of setting the file contents, but they didn't work out (e.g. ntpdate -q time.apple.com, ntpd -q). Replacing the whole of ntpd might do it, but I tried to avoid that myself as I didn't want to be too far off Apple's canonical software base in case it caused problems with future updates.

Good luck!

Tim

Hi - Looks like one of the quotes around '-25.686' is the wrong type, so the system is waiting for you to close an open quote. Type ctrl-C to cancel what you have in the Terminal, and from the standard standard prompt, try again with this:

cd Desktop

mkdir time-fix

cd time-fix

cp /var/db/ntp.drift ntp.drift.backup

echo '-25.686' > ntp.drift

sudo cp ntp.drift /var/db/ntp.drift

sudo killall ntpd

sudo killall pacemaker

sudo /usr/libexec/pacemaker -v

Nearly 48 hours after replacing ntpd with its Mountain Lion flavour, my "Mavericks clock" hasn't drifted one second. As far as I can tell, the Mavericks ntpd is flawed for at least certain Mac models.

Hi everyone -

I agree it's crazy, and that switching out the ntpd is one solution. I understand at least part of the reason for the change in Mavericks is to reduce energy consumption, which sounds like a good motive - but not to the extent of breaking the clock, of course, if that is what it has done.

James - in my experience of this issue and based on your latest output, it looks good to go for now. You should be able to tell after a day if the clock has drifted. You should also expect the drift value to change occasionally, if you run the pacemaker line in Terminal again. e.g. in the last 18 hours or so, mine changed from -25.686 to 2.919.

BTW if your clock is "corrected" with poor parameters that aren't being updated by a time server, it's not too surprising that it drifts by 5 minutes in a week.

Perhaps in the upcoming 10.9.2 update, there will be a tweak for the clock that will normalise things.

That's great news. Thanks for letting me know. Kind regards, Tim

Dear Tim,

Although replacing ntpd had actually solved my problem, about 15 hours ago I decided to try your solution. Much to my surprise, it works. My conclusion is that the crucial part is the creation of a brand-new ntpd.drift via the command

echo '-25.686' > ntp.drift

thereafter placing ntp.drift in the relevant folder. I'm forced to conclude that my original ntp.drift had somehow become corrupted (although the corruption only seemed to affect the Mavericks version of ntpd, not its Mountain Lion counterpart). Be that as it may, thank you so much. Naturally, I've restored the Mavericks version of ntpd.

Tim, I'm sorry to have to report that the supposed fix of Mavericks clock was only a mirage or, rather, a temporary one. It was all right for over two days, but on the third the clock was again slow by several seconds. After manually causing the clock to syncrhonise, I've noticed the clock remains steady and reliable for several hours, but then it starts drifting again, until it is again synchronised, remaining again stable for several hours and so on. I wonder if it may go nuts in periods of inactivity or something. For now, it seems that using the Mountain Lion ntpd is much more reliable than simply creating a new drift file.

Any ideas?

Sorry - I have no additional insights, and I'm not seeing the same issue on the machines I have access to. I think the steps that worked for my set-ups were both adjusting the ntp.conf file to ensure a well-formed time server address, and touching the ntp.drift file. Good luck! Tim

The drift seems to be unpredictable, both in magnitude and in frequency. For instance, since my previous message there hasn't been any drift. It would appear it is related to some specific activity or inactivity. I can't figure out the pattern.

I am using a 2012 mac mini and my clock was running fast since I updated to mavericks(10.9.5). Tried all the resets. Another page suggested starting safe mode. Tried all that. The clock on my mini was running fast, a second per hour or more.

The culprit for me seems to be a utility I installed called FanControl. I think it was competing with mavericks or something. It was generating an error message every 5s. After removing it, the clock seems to be keeping time bang on.

Procedure to eliminate FanControl

Open terminal and seach for FanControl:

$ ps -ef | grep -i fan

0 145 1 0 Gio12am ?? 3:58.07 /Library/StartupItems/FanControlDaemon/FanControlDaemon run

This tell me that I really have the FanControlDaemon running as pid 145.

Then I eliminate it :

$ cd /Library/StartupItems/

$ sudo rm -Rf FanControlDaemon/

and then kill the daemon:

$ sudo kill 145

WARNING: if you replicate this procedure the you have to use the PID you get from ps -ef instead of 145 !!! This number will surelly be different on your system.

Re: Error coming up in Console every 5 seconds