Windows Time Service: restarts every 10 minutes, never syncs

[*Vanguard*]

OS = Windows XP Professional SP-1

I noticed in the Event Viewer for the System log that the Windows Time
Service is getting restarted every 10 minutes. I see the following 4
entries at 10 minute intervals:

- Source = Service Control Manager, User = <myaccount>, "The Windows
Time Service was successfully sent a stop control."
- Source = Service Control Manager, User = N/A, "The Windows Time
Service entered the stopped state."
- A 2 second interval.
- Source = Service Control Manager, User = N/A, "The Windows Time
Service entered the running state."
- Source = Service Control Manager, User = <myaccount>, "The Windows
Time Service was successfully sent a start control."

<myaccount> is the one I am currently logged under and is in the
Administrators group. The service runs for 10 minutes and then gets
momentarily stopped and then immediately restarted. Why bounce it every
10 minutes? I am not in a domain, just a workgroup (of 1 host).

Also, I do NOT really use the time sync afforded in Windows XP because
it won't work. Double-clicking on the time in the system tray brings up
the "Date and Time Properties" applet. Under the Internet Time tab, the
option "Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server" is
disabled. When I enabled it to try to use it, I always get an error.
If enabled and I click Update Now, I get the error message, "An error
occurred while Windows was synchronizing with <server>." Originally
time.windows.com and time.nist.gov were the only entries. I added
ns.nts.umn.edu and nss.nts.umn.edu which is a local university's
publicly accessible time server. I know NTP is working because I can
use Socketwatch, a time sync utility, to synchronize my computer's clock
which can use whichever is the fastest responding time server from a
long list, and includes the ns.nts.umn.edu severs (but which never
get used because other time servers respond in half the time, so a
geographically local time server isn't always fastest). Disabling the
software firewall running on this host didn't help.

If I stop the Windows Time Service and configure it for Manual startup,
running Socketwatch will start this service. However, this is
unnecessary since disabling this service will not prevent Socketwatch
from synchronizing the time; i.e., Socketwatch doesn't need the Windows
Time Service. When Socketwatch does a time sync, Windows XP apparently
triggers to start its Windows Time service, if enabled, although it is
not needed. Disabling this service does not interfere with Socketwatch.
So, yes, I could leave the Windows Time Service disabled but I'd still
like to know what causes this service to bounce every 10 minutes and why
I can't sync the time using Windows' own features.

Socketwatch is configured to synchronize at 60-minute intervals, not at
10-minute intervals. So it is still a mystery as to why the Time
Service runs for 10 minutes, gets stopped, and 2 seconds later gets
restarted. This fills up the System log with lots of superfluous
records about a service continually getting bounced. Also, I've never
gotten the Windows' own Internet time sync to work although Socketwatch
works (and unloading Socketwatch doesn't help, either, in case it was
interfering with the Windows Time Service).

 

[NetNut]

Hi Vanguard,
I did a search for 'ntp time servers' and tried at least 10 of them before I
found one which worked with XP's time sync, every time. But that took all of
5 minutes. I would think, don't give up on it to quickly. Why install extra
software if you don't have to?
The NetNut

OS = Windows XP Professional SP-1

I noticed in the Event Viewer for the System log that the Windows Time
Service is getting restarted every 10 minutes. I see the following 4
entries at 10 minute intervals:

- Source = Service Control Manager, User = <myaccount>, "The Windows
Time Service was successfully sent a stop control."
- Source = Service Control Manager, User = N/A, "The Windows Time
Service entered the stopped state."
- A 2 second interval.
- Source = Service Control Manager, User = N/A, "The Windows Time
Service entered the running state."
- Source = Service Control Manager, User = <myaccount>, "The Windows
Time Service was successfully sent a start control."

<myaccount> is the one I am currently logged under and is in the
Administrators group. The service runs for 10 minutes and then gets
momentarily stopped and then immediately restarted. Why bounce it every
10 minutes? I am not in a domain, just a workgroup (of 1 host).

Also, I do NOT really use the time sync afforded in Windows XP because
it won't work. Double-clicking on the time in the system tray brings up
the "Date and Time Properties" applet. Under the Internet Time tab, the
option "Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server" is
disabled. When I enabled it to try to use it, I always get an error.
If enabled and I click Update Now, I get the error message, "An error
occurred while Windows was synchronizing with <server>." Originally
time.windows.com and time.nist.gov were the only entries. I added
ns.nts.umn.edu and nss.nts.umn.edu which is a local university's
publicly accessible time server. I know NTP is working because I can
use Socketwatch, a time sync utility, to synchronize my computer's clock
which can use whichever is the fastest responding time server from a
long list, and includes the ns.nts.umn.edu severs (but which never
get used because other time servers respond in half the time, so a
geographically local time server isn't always fastest). Disabling the
software firewall running on this host didn't help.

If I stop the Windows Time Service and configure it for Manual startup,
running Socketwatch will start this service. However, this is
unnecessary since disabling this service will not prevent Socketwatch
from synchronizing the time; i.e., Socketwatch doesn't need the Windows
Time Service. When Socketwatch does a time sync, Windows XP apparently
triggers to start its Windows Time service, if enabled, although it is
not needed. Disabling this service does not interfere with Socketwatch.
So, yes, I could leave the Windows Time Service disabled but I'd still
like to know what causes this service to bounce every 10 minutes and why
I can't sync the time using Windows' own features.

Socketwatch is configured to synchronize at 60-minute intervals, not at
10-minute intervals. So it is still a mystery as to why the Time
Service runs for 10 minutes, gets stopped, and 2 seconds later gets
restarted. This fills up the System log with lots of superfluous
records about a service continually getting bounced. Also, I've never
gotten the Windows' own Internet time sync to work although Socketwatch
works (and unloading Socketwatch doesn't help, either, in case it was
interfering with the Windows Time Service).

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[*Vanguard*]

"NetNut" said in news:%[email protected]:

Hi Vanguard,
I did a search for 'ntp time servers' and tried at least 10 of them
before I found one which worked with XP's time sync, every time. But
that took all of 5 minutes. I would think, don't give up on it to
quickly. Why install extra software if you don't have to?

Two problems with the Windows Time Service in Windows XP: No retries to
a busy server and syncs only once per session.

It has no graceful recovery. It performs no sloped retries (where it
does N retries in which the delay between each retry is a bit longer
than before). If the NTP server is busy then the time sync fails. That
was the problem when trying to use many time servers. With a long list
of publicly accessible servers, you get a far better chance of actually
getting your time synchronized. You also access the one that is the
quickest to respond. If you pick a server that works now but becomes
too busy later then you don't get sync'ed. This makes this service too
flaky.

The other problem is that the time sync only occurs once - when you
login. If you leave your computer running for days or weeks then you've
only sync'ed your time once way back when you logged in. I suppose I
could run "w32tm /resync" but, according to the Help, "This procedure
only works on computers that are joined to a domain", so it isn't
applicable to me in a workgroup (but maybe "w32tm /config /update" might
work). However, I'm not really interested in having to manually run
commands in a DOS shell, Run prompt, or have to schedule an event in
Task Scheduler. Some functions will fail if your time is significantly
different than that on another host. I believe SSL will fail if your
time is way different than the other host. KB article 813444 alludes to
this. If the time server you configured happened to be too busy or
unreachable due to network routing problems at the time you logged in
then you never do get sync'ed up until the the next time you login.

In any case, I've decided to NOT use the Windows Time Service. I
thought I had configured it before as Disabled but maybe that was on
another host. My concern is a further defect with this service in that
it keeps stopping and restarting every 10 minutes. The obvious
workaround is to disable this service. That's a workaround. I'd prefer
to understand the cause or if this is considered normal behavior. For
anyone else that DOES have the Windows Time Service configured for
Automatic load on Windows startup, do you see this service restarting
every 10 minutes?