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DZinfo · Dec 13, 2001, 10:27 PM

It doesn't happen all the time but the clock seems to magically set itself to Dec. 1969 at 7 PM. I'll reset it to the current date and time save work a couple of days and all of a sudden it's back. Anyone else have the same problem?

OS 10.1
G4 DP 500

Nonsuch · Dec 13, 2001, 11:08 PM

Happened to me once, about five days ago. No idea why.

Cowdog · Dec 13, 2001, 11:13 PM

yeah I have that too.. I think it's because I have "use network time server" on and my crappy former @home cable service is so irregular these days it can't connect to the server to set the time and gives me the bogus date instead. At least that is my theory.

Nonsuch · Dec 13, 2001, 11:17 PM

I don't have Network Time enabled and I still got that bug. (FWIW)

mikemako · Dec 13, 2001, 11:24 PM

That occurs as a result of any restart on my machine and many others too. There is currently no fix I am aware of. I have tried changing the settings such as "use network time" or "do not", doesn't matter. I expect it will be fixed in 10.1.2- it is a fairly common bug that the community has been vocal about.

Ghoser777 · Dec 13, 2001, 11:26 PM

Maybe OS X has a 69 fetish. If you say 'X' like the letter, and then say OS X fast enough, it does sound like "oh sex:

F-bacher

wavegroom · Dec 14, 2001, 04:39 AM

I have this problem on my iBook too. It happens sometimes when I make a reset, or when the battary is empty... It goes back to 1969 becouse it's a unix system, this date is the birthday of unix.

Michael G · Dec 14, 2001, 05:42 AM

hi,

i ve got the same problem - or better nearly the same.... - mine is set to 1.Jan. 1970 as other unix boxes eg. sun or sgi....
haven't had this problem before and first thought it was the battery(but my g4 450 mp is just a year old and in use everyday, battery lasts longer than a year), but under os 9 this didn't happen.... mmmh, 10.1.1 bug???
any solution on the way

michael

Jelle Monkmater · Dec 14, 2001, 08:05 AM

Mine resets to 1970 on occasion as well, especially after I get the infinite bouncing applications (which in my case are the result of carelessly connecting my Archos Jukebox vua USB).

It's usually after one or more re-restarts that the correct date is back again (without tampering with the prefs). If this doesn't help, I've notices that resetting the machine when the happy Mac appears also greatly helps in making it remember when it is.

Interestingly enough, I've only experienced this on my G4 DP 500 (Gigabit Ethernet), not on my late 2001 iBook.

Coming back to the not tampering with the prefs: I've noticed that the correct date and time are still present somewhere on the machine, it's just that OS X 10.1 (10.1.1) failed to see it when starting up. Rebooting in OS 9 always results in that OS displaying the right date and time.

So my advice: don't change the date and time when it resets, just restart your computer once or twice more, or pull the 'reset when restarting' trick if you're not too worried about potential damage it could do.

godzookie2k · Dec 14, 2001, 11:47 AM

ditto

cutterjohn · Dec 14, 2001, 12:19 PM

...some date in 1970, forget the exact date is the default start time for UNIX system clocks...

ntp SHOULD make NO changes to the local system clock if it cannot contact a time server. i.e. the local time should be left to its own devices to run off of its own internal clock without corrections, as in normal time operation ntp merely compares local time to server time and produces a time delta which is gradually applied to the local clock.

Now as to clocks resetting like that? Are you running a notebook? have you lost power? (I had this happen months ago on an dual-usb ibook, and only noticed it because I had forgotten to setup ntp on that machine...)

last note: 1969? no clu as to where that comes from although oters posts may be correct in that ntp is getting bogus time data from the time server, or possibly OS X is doing something strange, but the time system is a standard unix variant...

DZinfo · Dec 14, 2001, 05:16 PM

WOW! what a response in just one day! Thanks to all who responded. To let you I am not on a laptop and yes if I boot into 9 it will show the correct date and time it only seems to happen in OSX.

Just one of those little things that I want to fix any suggestions other than restarting the machine, would like a more permanent solution.

Thanks again.

DZinfo · Dec 14, 2001, 05:20 PM

Oh one more thing I am not hooked up to a network or the cable modem with the G4.

Jelle Monkmater · Dec 14, 2001, 05:36 PM

As it stands, there is no solution for the problem, but I suggest going to the Mac OS X feedback page at Apple.com and reporting the problem -- if enough people do so it'll probably get fixed at some point during the future of OS X.

In the meantime, don't restart.

Oh, and DZInfo, as you've got a similar computer to mine, maybe you can reproduce this little oddity:

-- Open System Preferences
-- Open a Terminal window
-- Wait a long time while doing all sorts of stuff.
-- Now go to the Terminal and type 'open .'.
-- If I wait long enough, sooner or later I won't get it to open, but instead be presented with a 'Bus error'.

Weird.

DZinfo · Dec 14, 2001, 05:49 PM

I'll give it a try and let you know...

Originally posted by Jelle Monkmater:
As it stands, there is no solution for the problem, but I suggest going to the Mac OS X feedback page at Apple.com and reporting the problem -- if enough people do so it'll probably get fixed at some point during the future of OS X.

In the meantime, don't restart.

Oh, and DZInfo, as you've got a similar computer to mine, maybe you can reproduce this little oddity:

-- Open System Preferences
-- Open a Terminal window
-- Wait a long time while doing all sorts of stuff.
-- Now go to the Terminal and type 'open .'.
-- If I wait long enough, sooner or later I won't get it to open, but instead be presented with a 'Bus error'.

Weird.

aleph_null · Dec 14, 2001, 06:03 PM

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
Maybe OS X has a 69 fetish. If you say 'X' like the letter, and then say OS X fast enough, it does sound like "oh sex:

That's probably it. Must be related to OS X's g-spot.

Turns out Apple's products are all just thinly-veiled attempts by software engineers to produce a date...

(Hmmm... And that, folks, is a little too eerily close to reality for comfort ...)

Anyway, happens to me, too. Usually after either coming back from Classic, or playing Quake 3 in X. (Which, by the way, utterly fails to reset my mouse speed...) Glad to hear it's not just me.

DZinfo · Dec 14, 2001, 11:01 PM

Been trying to reproduce this but it has not happened for me.

I'll keep trying...

Originally posted by Jelle Monkmater:
As it stands, there is no solution for the problem, but I suggest going to the Mac OS X feedback page at Apple.com and reporting the problem -- if enough people do so it'll probably get fixed at some point during the future of OS X.

In the meantime, don't restart.

Oh, and DZInfo, as you've got a similar computer to mine, maybe you can reproduce this little oddity:

-- Open System Preferences
-- Open a Terminal window
-- Wait a long time while doing all sorts of stuff.
-- Now go to the Terminal and type 'open .'.
-- If I wait long enough, sooner or later I won't get it to open, but instead be presented with a 'Bus error'.

Weird.

DZinfo · Dec 14, 2001, 11:08 PM

Been trying to reproduce this but it has not happened for me.

I'll keep trying...

Originally posted by Jelle Monkmater:
As it stands, there is no solution for the problem, but I suggest going to the Mac OS X feedback page at Apple.com and reporting the problem -- if enough people do so it'll probably get fixed at some point during the future of OS X.

In the meantime, don't restart.

Oh, and DZInfo, as you've got a similar computer to mine, maybe you can reproduce this little oddity:

-- Open System Preferences
-- Open a Terminal window
-- Wait a long time while doing all sorts of stuff.
-- Now go to the Terminal and type 'open .'.
-- If I wait long enough, sooner or later I won't get it to open, but instead be presented with a 'Bus error'.

Weird.

elvisripley · Dec 14, 2001, 11:43 PM

sometimes the battery is bad to begin with and causes all types of problems. Go ahead and change it if you are having date problems.

Jelle Monkmater · Dec 15, 2001, 06:42 AM

Originally posted by elvisripley:
sometimes the battery is bad to begin with and causes all types of problems. Go ahead and change it if you are having date problems.

But that would not explain the phenomena described here: rebooting in OS9 brings back the correct date, and any number of restarts of OS X can spontaneously bring back the date as well. Surely if it were a battery-related thing the date would stay forgotten until you set it again?

Michael G · Dec 15, 2001, 07:10 AM

yes i don't even think its the battery... had a low battery on a quadra which showed the same effect as reseting PRAM... clock, network, mouse settings lost...

the 1970problem is something other, would be great if anybody would name its mac system, as i have seen another had nearly the same system as mine... also it is a problem of os x 10.1.1 never had this thing before - 2 times the week i travel 100km with my computer and at the beginning i thought it's the battery, but under os 9 it is all fine..... so it is definitly not the pram-battery, also hadn't a clock reset after pushing the motherboard reset knob aka cuda-reset(?!), so something like a systemstart which fails in taking over the correct time from the hardware

my system
G4 450 DP 10.1.1 (i am trying to get the clock-problem under 10.0.4 today...)

is it a kind of DualProcessor-problem??
michael

Michael G · Dec 17, 2001, 08:57 AM

hi
any news??? still havning this problem

michael

starfleetX · Dec 17, 2001, 11:03 AM

I think I've got your answer.

First of all, this does not mean your motherboard's battery is dying.

I'd bet that each of you with the resetting clock has a dual-processor Mac, no? That, or do you have a SCSI PCI card? Or both? There have been numerous reports of the 1969 syndrome, nearly all of which have been on dual-processor Macs, frequently with PCI cards, notably the Adaptec SCSI card that Apple ships.

Well, this is a bug that was introduced in the GM version of Mac OS X 10.1. None of the previous versions, AFAIK, carried this bug, even the "internal" seeds of pre-GM 10.1. If you use Open Firmware to set boot-args=-v or hold command-V to boot up using "verbose mode", you will see about three lines after the Copyright line a brief message saying something about not getting a time event (can't remember it off the top of my head). Well, that, ladies and gentlemen, is where your clock is getting reset.

All you can do to fix it is have the clock set by the network or just don't reboot.

I'm fairly sure Apple knows about this by now and am hoping for a fix in the near future.

Jelle Monkmater · Dec 17, 2001, 12:20 PM

It may sound far out, but not rebooting isn't as hard as it sounds. Mind you, I really only have problems if the system crashes, not when I just reboot so the new iTunes can spread through the system.

It's a funny old world for DP people.

Mskr · Dec 17, 2001, 02:21 PM

I'm really surprised that nobody wrote in to say (really) why it would get reset to Jan 1st, 1970.

In UNIX, the date is stored in an offset number of seconds since a fixed point in time, in order to make the date & time easier to store. This scheme is referred to as epoch time. Here's the entry for epoch in the jargon file:

epoch n.

[Unix: prob. from astronomical timekeeping] The time and date corresponding to 0 in an operating system's clock and timestamp values. Under most Unix versions the epoch is 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970; under VMS, it's 00:00:00 of November 17, 1858 (base date of the U.S. Naval Observatory's ephemerides); on a Macintosh, it's the midnight beginning January 1 1904. System time is measured in seconds or ticks past the epoch. Weird problems may ensue when the clock wraps around (see wrap around), which is not necessarily a rare event; on systems counting 10 ticks per second, a signed 32-bit count of ticks is good only for 6.8 years. The 1-tick-per-second clock of Unix is good only until January 18, 2038, assuming at least some software continues to consider it signed and that word lengths don't increase by then. See also wall time. Microsoft Windows, on the other hand, has an epoch problem every 49.7 days - but this is seldom noticed as Windows is almost incapable of staying up continuously for that long.

Anyway, the epoch date that is negative could be used to show the 1969 dates, and any positive number would be any date after Jan. 1st, 1970.

Jelle Monkmater · Dec 17, 2001, 03:09 PM

Originally posted by Mskr:
I'm really surprised that nobody wrote in to say (really) why it would get reset to Jan 1st, 1970.

[snip!]

Anyway, the epoch date that is negative could be used to show the 1969 dates, and any positive number would be any date after Jan. 1st, 1970.

This raises the question how on Earth the epoch could be a negative number. I can imagine that the machine can't find it (or whatever) and sets it to nought, but negative? How?

OS X: Golly! I can't find the epoch date!
DP machine: Why not take this number?
OS X:: That can't be right! It's nought!
DP machine: Fine, let's generate an error because of that. How about -10184?
OS X: Eh. Okay.
And so on.

Michael G · Dec 18, 2001, 04:51 AM

hi,

starting up in verbose mode helped me not to loose the correct date this time (but could be any other reason as well)... will prove this the next startup...
yeah i am having an additional realtek based ethernetcard (from genius-kye, works fine, but doesn't sleep

) plugged in a pci-slot ...which was seen during verbose startup....

mmmh, hope there will be a real solution soon...

michael

G4 450 MP, 1.6gig Ram, 2x60gig IC35L, Realtek-based Ethernet Card

starfleetX · Dec 18, 2001, 01:07 PM

Keep in mind, Michael G, that it is not unusual if you clock does not reset. In fact, my clock only resets on about half of my restarts. I have tried repeating patterns of different ways of rebooting and can not find a common thread. It seems utterly random.

By the way, here's the line I was referring to earlier:

ApplePlatformExport::getGMTTimeOfDay can not provide time of day RTC did not show up

I'll post this in the UNIX forum also to see if anyone there has a clue about this.

Michael G · Dec 18, 2001, 05:29 PM

Originally posted by starfleetX:
Keep in mind, Michael G, that it is not unusual if you clock does not reset. In fact, my clock only resets on about half of my restarts. I have tried repeating patterns of different ways of rebooting and can not find a common thread. It seems utterly random.

By the way, here's the line I was referring to earlier:

I'll post this in the UNIX forum also to see if anyone there has a clue about this.

hi
mmh startfleetx, no such message in system.log but :

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>
Dec 16 18:27:14 localhost loginwindow[299]: kCGErrorIllegalArgument : CGSUnregisterWindowWithSystemStatusBar: Invalid window
Dec 16 18:27:14 localhost configd[145]: executing /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/Kicker.bundle/Resources/restart-automount
Dec 16 18:27:14 localhost mach_kernel: syncing disks...
Dec 16 18:27:14 localhost halt: halted by michael
Dec 16 18:27:14 localhost syslogd: exiting on signal 15
Jan 1 01:00:22 localhost syslogd: restart
Jan 1 01:00:22 localhost mach_kernel: llocateMemPage()===>
Jan 1 01:00:22 localhost mach_kernel: rtl8139::_allocateMemPage()<===
Jan 1 01:00:22 localhost mach_kernel: rtl8139::_allocateMemPage()===>
Jan 1 01:00:22 localhost mach_kernel: rtl8139::_allocateMemPage()<===
[/code]

strange behaviour, clock must bes reset during restart... but read on other forum apple knows the time problem this and will correct this....
a little bit a cosmetic problem, causing uptimes from over 20 years

....hope "deutshe telekom" doesn't bill me the whole time using dsl....
michael

Michael G · Dec 21, 2001, 04:53 AM

hi,

probably 10.1.2 solved this.... 2 restarts without the effect of loosing the time....
nice x-maass
michael

Michael G · Dec 21, 2001, 01:41 PM

sh.... 10.1.2 doesn't solve the issue

starfleetX · Dec 21, 2001, 05:38 PM

Originally posted by Michael G:
hi
mmh startfleetx, no such message in system.log

Did I say anything about system.log? I din't think so...

boot up using "verbose mode", you will see about three lines after the Copyright line a brief message saying something about not getting a time even

I'm talking about the text spewn across when in when you start up via verbose mode, not the text that is output to system.log.

Here's the thread in the UNIX forums I made. Scrod found a little bit of info, but nothing very helpful.

vsurfer · May 3, 2002, 03:31 PM

April/May 2002....Add me to the list too...

g3 400 iMacDV

I came back after a week away to find my computer date changed to 1 Jan 1970...the unix date thingy...

I think I had time synching off the Apple Americas server before (via cable ISP) don't know why that pref would not have been remembered.

But cable ISP service has been a little erratic lately.

Oh and yes, I'm using OSX 10.1.4

starfleetX · May 3, 2002, 04:14 PM

Sorry, but my problems and everyone else's went away with 10.1.3. That was the magic update that stopped clearing the clock.

Now, you say your time just up and changed to epoch on its own?

That's not the same as this discussion. We had a problem where the clock reset only when the computer restarted, at no other times. Furthermore, the only affected Macs were dual processor G4s.

I suspect you have encountered a different issue altogether.

It may seem farfetched, but is there a chance someone else could have used your computer and mucked up the tme while you were away?