Time synchronization

[Guest]

Hi,
When synchronizing to the external time server in one of customer's LANs, I
experience the following fenomenon: the station's local time first changes to
the UTC (GMT) time (maybe it's a coincidence but this time is 2 hours earlier
than my local time) and then, in a few seconds, it is automatically corrected
to the proper time. The problem is in these few seconds (maybe even less)
which is enough to make a mess. For synchronizing, I use the application
NetTime (by Graham Mainwaring, version 2.0), running as an XP service. In
other LANs this application works OK so it seems that the cause is somewhere
else. On the other hand, from what I know of time messages, they travel
across the network in UTC format, so the correction (adjustment to the local
time) must be done locally, upon delivery. Did anybody encounter a similar
problem? I'll appreciate any suggestion.
Regards

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

When synchronizing to the external time server in one of customer's LANs, I
experience the following fenomenon: the station's local time first changes to
the UTC (GMT) time (maybe it's a coincidence but this time is 2 hours earlier
than my local time) and then, in a few seconds, it is automatically corrected
to the proper time. The problem is in these few seconds (maybe even less)
which is enough to make a mess. For synchronizing, I use the application
NetTime (by Graham Mainwaring, version 2.0), running as an XP service. In
other LANs this application works OK so it seems that the cause is somewhere
else. On the other hand, from what I know of time messages, they travel
across the network in UTC format, so the correction (adjustment to the local
time) must be done locally, upon delivery. Did anybody encounter a similar
problem? I'll appreciate any suggestion.

No need to install a third party service, as XP already has one
built in.

Check http://winhlp.com/wxtime.htm for more information.

Hans-Georg

 

[Guest]

--
Jerzy Matwiejczuk


„Hans-Georg Michna†pisze:

No need to install a third party service, as XP already has one
built in.

Check http://winhlp.com/wxtime.htm for more information.

Hans-Georg

Thanks a lot for your concern, Hans-Georg.
The situation has changed a bit since last week. It's strange, but after
having stopped both w32time and NetTime the problem still remains. Although
there's no time synchronizng services/applications active, 'something'
shifted the time back by 2 hours. There are differences, however: this time
it took place only once, while under NetTime it happened several times a day.
Before, NetTime repaired the time immediately, so 'something' had more
occasions to spoil it, and now once the time is spoiled, it remains like this
until somebody corrects it manually. But there is one thing the two
situations have in common: time travel happens only when there are some
workstations switched on in the LAN. It had never happend at night and on
weekends. The conclusion seems to be simple: there must be one (or more)
workstations on the LAN which are a source of wrong time to my workstation.
So we are back at 'something' which sends for and receives this spoiled time.
Does anybody have any idea what this mysterious 'something' could be? Apart
from those stopped, there are no other time synchronizing utilities on my
workstation, as far as I know.
Regards
Jerzy

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

The situation has changed a bit since last week. It's strange, but after
having stopped both w32time and NetTime the problem still remains. Although
there's no time synchronizng services/applications active, 'something'
shifted the time back by 2 hours. There are differences, however: this time
it took place only once, while under NetTime it happened several times a day.
Before, NetTime repaired the time immediately, so 'something' had more
occasions to spoil it, and now once the time is spoiled, it remains like this
until somebody corrects it manually. But there is one thing the two
situations have in common: time travel happens only when there are some
workstations switched on in the LAN. It had never happend at night and on
weekends. The conclusion seems to be simple: there must be one (or more)
workstations on the LAN which are a source of wrong time to my workstation.
So we are back at 'something' which sends for and receives this spoiled time.
Does anybody have any idea what this mysterious 'something' could be? Apart
from those stopped, there are no other time synchronizing utilities on my
workstation, as far as I know.

Jerzy,

it does look like some stupid third-party software though.
Perhaps there is a script running somewhere that takes the time
from another computer.

Do all your local computers have the same time zone setting?

Hans-Georg

 

[Guest]

Jerzy,

it does look like some stupid third-party software though.
Perhaps there is a script running somewhere that takes the time
from another computer.

Do all your local computers have the same time zone setting?

Hans-Georg

Unfortunately, I have no immediate nor direct access to that LAN, it's at
the customer's site in another city. To be honest, I don't have even remote
access to it, and I can monitor the situation via phone only. From what I
know, nobody on that LAN complained about wrong time. Having two 'legal' SNTP
clients stopped, the next step to be done is to disconnect first one and then
the other cable from the network (the worstation has two network
connections), to eliminate 'suspects'. There's still a chance that some local
application changes the time. We indeed have some third-party software
installed on that workstation, like e.g. 4CONTROL runtime, OPC protocol etc.,
so who knows...?
Regards
Jerzy