Hello there,

I was wondering if any one came across that issue before. Everytime I reboot my PC something (I assume GNOME) reset my system clock to an hour behind what is was the last time. So if a reboot twice in a row that'll be two hours behind and so on. It used to work fine until I had to change my system time backward temporally to overcome and issue with GPG. Since I put it back I get that phenomena. It's like it's adjusting it for the Day light saving everytime a boot. Problem is Japan does not have any day light saving.
I run OpenSuse 11.2 with Gnome 2.28.2 as my interface.
I'm currently located in Japan GMT+9 not DST.
/etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Tokyo

I suspect a bug in Gnome or Yast. It's not user specific because the time is already altered even before I log it.

Now If anyone has a clue about how to fix that, I'll be much grateful.

Thank you

I don't have a clue about fixing it (BIOS, hwclock, env TZ, init scripts) but how about countering it by using NTP?

I would normally say a ntp issue. Not sure how a reboot could do that more than once.


The only other thought is using USA devices on 50Hz Japan power. Can't say how that would do it, normally the time is at wrong speed.

Try to boot with all network access off, remove ethernet.

Simply boot to bios and check time a few times. Be sure to do a cold boot. I mean cold. Remove ac plug and press power a few times, then return plug and boot to bios. Does it keep changing?

You don't say if you are "dual-booting" with windows.

Win handles time very differently from linux, and this can lead to (stupid, but fixable) problems.

Some more information, please.

And welcome to LQ!

Thank you all for taking time to reply to my post.
It is a weird bug, it must be Gnome. It only started recently after I moved the clock backward temporarily. I should reboot the system at init 3 and see if that occur. Even if I can blame it on Gnome that won't help me though but that's a lead.

In the mean time I am going to play with hwclock and have a read about NTP.

I am running Windows XP but virtually so that can't be the cause.

Try to boot with all network access off, remove ethernet.

Simply boot to bios and check time a few times. Be sure to do a cold boot. I mean cold. Remove ac plug and press power a few times, then return plug and boot to bios. Does it keep changing?

I did try a cold boot but it doesn't make a difference.

Cold or warm if I get into the BIOS the time is the same as the last time I shut down the PC. It's later on during boot time that the clock gets modified.
That's a weird one.
I ran some tests by loading Linux at different run level.
The first time I boot Linux under level 1 the clock changes back an hour. The next consecutive time at level 1 the clock remains the same.
Alternatively the first time I boot the system from level 1 to level [2 or 3 or 5] the clock don't change, but the next time the clock will change back an hour.
That's beyond my understanding, my last hope is NTP or a kernel update.

This would imply that your CMOS clock hardware is broken, or the battery is flat, but perhaps I misunderstand you, and you mean the time error (if any) is the same as it was when you last shot down (in which case the HWclock is OK).

My guess is that when your PC boots, and the network is up, ntp is setting the time for you. I don't understand why ntp is out by an hour though.
Anything interesting in one of your environment variables?

I don't run anything in a VM, so it is difficult to offer advice here, but maybe you should double-check that windows (even in a VM) isn't the cause. I suspect it might be.

This is a weird situation indeed.


Here's a couple more ideas:

See if you have `zic` on your system. zic is the 'timezone compiler' and the manpage may give you some clue or hint about something else to investigate. If you don't have the manpage for zic, then your system doesn't use it so don't worry about that.

Second: if it were me, I'd be having a good look at my init and shutdown scripts, and examine any code having to do with reading or setting or saving the time during boot or shutdown. I don't know how something like this weird situation would start pretty much by itself (or how an init script would get altered without the admin altering it), but it'd be worth a look anyhow.

Good luck - keep us posted.

Don't what the cause might be, but a workaround might (might) be to put this line in /etc/init.d/halt.local

Which will set the hardware clock to whatever Linux currently thinks the time is. Obviously you need to make sure Linux knows the correct time before you try this.

When you boot to a live cd does it work correctly?

I also have to venture that this is probably an error somewhere in the configuration scripts for the time. Possibly something with gnomes time management or what not. I would rule out any hardware issues since time was unaffected when you prevented the system from booting into the OS. One thing to note is you can set your bios to UTC and then setup your time stuff to give you the time based on your time zone. If you don't do this the time zone information is ignored and time is retrieved from the bios.

Thanks you all for your help. I'm going to try your suggestions to night, I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,

Funny... I lose entire evenings when I turn on my PC...