Time synchronization problem.

[John Corliss]

This morning I was dabbling around in my Date and Time Properties window
and clicked on the "Internet Time" tab. The "Automatically synchronize
with an Internet time server" setting is correctly checked and the
server that was selected was the "time.nist.gov" server.

I tried pressing the "Update Now" button to see what would happen and
there was a long pause during which a message which simply said:

"Please wait while Windows synchronizes with time.nist.gov"

appeared. After the pause, another message which said:

"An error occurred while Windows was synchronizing with time.nist.gov"

When I tried the "time.windows.gov" server, the same thing happened.

Googling around came up with two possible problems:

1. My firewall (Kerio 2.1.5) might be blocking port 123 somehow.
2. One of my antispyware programs might no be allowing time
synchronization to occur.

I checked all of my antispyware programs (AdAware, Spybot S&D, Spyware
Terminator) and none of them had any setting I could see which would do
such a thing. In addition, Kerio has no rule set to block the necessary
port FWICS.

After more Googling, I found a suggestion that the server name was
misspelled and that I should change it to "time-a.nist.gov". I opened
Regedit and went to:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers

to make the change. Next, I tried clicking on the "Update Now" button
again and immediately, I got the following message:

"The time has been successfully synchronized with time-a.nist.gov on
6/20/2007 at 2:30 AM."

(I have a sleep disorder.)

Since the time-a.nist.gov server ends in ".gov", I figure it's safe.
However, there remains a shred of doubt. Any remarks or suggestions?

TIA

 

[FreeComputerConsultant.com]

This morning I was dabbling around in my Date and Time Properties window
and clicked on the "Internet Time" tab. The "Automatically synchronize
with an Internet time server" setting is correctly checked and the
server that was selected was the "time.nist.gov" server.

I tried pressing the "Update Now" button to see what would happen and
there was a long pause during which a message which simply said:

"Please wait while Windows synchronizes with time.nist.gov"

appeared. After the pause, another message which said:

"An error occurred while Windows was synchronizing with time.nist.gov"

When I tried the "time.windows.gov" server, the same thing happened.

Googling around came up with two possible problems:

1. My firewall (Kerio 2.1.5) might be blocking port 123 somehow.
2. One of my antispyware programs might no be allowing time
synchronization to occur.

I checked all of my antispyware programs (AdAware, Spybot S&D, Spyware
Terminator) and none of them had any setting I could see which would do
such a thing. In addition, Kerio has no rule set to block the necessary
port FWICS.

After more Googling, I found a suggestion that the server name was
misspelled and that I should change it to "time-a.nist.gov". I opened
Regedit and went to:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers

to make the change. Next, I tried clicking on the "Update Now" button
again and immediately, I got the following message:

"The time has been successfully synchronized with time-a.nist.gov on
6/20/2007 at 2:30 AM."

(I have a sleep disorder.)

Since the time-a.nist.gov server ends in ".gov", I figure it's safe.
However, there remains a shred of doubt. Any remarks or suggestions?

TIA

time-a.nist.gov and time-b.nist.gov and time.windows.com are commonly
suggested and used; however, many times they will not respond within the
timeout period due to high traffic. All 3 considered safe.

www.FreeComputerConsultant.com

 

[John Corliss]

time-a.nist.gov and time-b.nist.gov and time.windows.com are commonly
suggested and used; however, many times they will not respond within the
timeout period due to high traffic. All 3 considered safe.

www.FreeComputerConsultant.com

Thanks for replying. By the way, I actually did manage to get the
time.nist.gov server to respond once. However, it's probably overloaded
all the time and that's why I was unable to get it to reply.

I just found these pages too:

http://www.cts.ucla.edu/noc/timesync.htm
http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/WebHome

 

[Rock]

This morning I was dabbling around in my Date and Time Properties window
and clicked on the "Internet Time" tab. The "Automatically synchronize
with an Internet time server" setting is correctly checked and the server
that was selected was the "time.nist.gov" server.

I tried pressing the "Update Now" button to see what would happen and
there was a long pause during which a message which simply said:

"Please wait while Windows synchronizes with time.nist.gov"

appeared. After the pause, another message which said:

"An error occurred while Windows was synchronizing with time.nist.gov"

When I tried the "time.windows.gov" server, the same thing happened.

Googling around came up with two possible problems:

1. My firewall (Kerio 2.1.5) might be blocking port 123 somehow.
2. One of my antispyware programs might no be allowing time
synchronization to occur.

I checked all of my antispyware programs (AdAware, Spybot S&D, Spyware
Terminator) and none of them had any setting I could see which would do
such a thing. In addition, Kerio has no rule set to block the necessary
port FWICS.

After more Googling, I found a suggestion that the server name was
misspelled and that I should change it to "time-a.nist.gov". I opened
Regedit and went to:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers

to make the change. Next, I tried clicking on the "Update Now" button
again and immediately, I got the following message:

"The time has been successfully synchronized with time-a.nist.gov on
6/20/2007 at 2:30 AM."

(I have a sleep disorder.)

Since the time-a.nist.gov server ends in ".gov", I figure it's safe.
However, there remains a shred of doubt. Any remarks or suggestions?

No need to change the server in the registry. Just type in the new server
name in Internet Time tab.