Time and date wrong on RevPi: RTC backup not working?

[raydodo]

Hi Simon

Sorry for the long delay - moved on to a different project, but back again now.

As before, running

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sudo timedatectl status

would result in

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 Failed to query server: Invalid argument

. However, I then set the clock to the correct time/date using

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sudo timedatectl -s "2019-12-02 14:34"

and

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sudo hwclock -w

. After doing this

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sudo timedatectl status

returns

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      Local time: Mon 2019-12-02 14:34:45 GMT
  Universal time: Mon 2019-12-02 14:34:45 UTC
        RTC time: Mon 2019-12-02 14:34:46
       Time zone: Etc/Greenwich (GMT, +0000)
 Network time on: yes
NTP synchronized: no
 RTC in local TZ: no

Is this now the correct setting? I will try and test this week.

Thanks
Ray

[zhan]

Hi Raydodo,

It's fine, never mind.
And it's a good news that you get some progress.
I think the setting is always correct depending on your scenario.
In your setting, it is assumed that you are located in GMT, +0000, you want to synchronize the time of your device with NTP server, which may be configured in timesyncd.conf (man timesyncd.conf), but the network connection to that is not available.

In addition, regarding to your case, the following information may be relevant to you.
"Invalid argument" is probably caused by reading the RTC failed, which can be caused by one of two reasons:
1. Something happened with Oscillator in RTC, which you would see a warning log in kern.log as "oscillator stop detected, date/time is not reliable"
2. The time stored in RTC is not a valid time. e.g. earlier than 1970
Currently, I don't know the further reason for these problems, just try to give you some clue, maybe you can find some possibilities regarding your use environment.

Regards,
Simon

Hi Simon

Sorry for the long delay - moved on to a different project, but back again now.

As before, running

Code: Select all

sudo timedatectl status

would result in

Code: Select all

 Failed to query server: Invalid argument

. However, I then set the clock to the correct time/date using

Code: Select all

sudo timedatectl -s "2019-12-02 14:34"

and

Code: Select all

sudo hwclock -w

. After doing this

Code: Select all

sudo timedatectl status

returns

Code: Select all

      Local time: Mon 2019-12-02 14:34:45 GMT
  Universal time: Mon 2019-12-02 14:34:45 UTC
        RTC time: Mon 2019-12-02 14:34:46
       Time zone: Etc/Greenwich (GMT, +0000)
 Network time on: yes
NTP synchronized: no
 RTC in local TZ: no

Is this now the correct setting? I will try and test this week.

Thanks
Ray

[raydodo]

Thanks Simon.

Here's where I am so far! I have flashed a new Stretch image, factory reset the device and run "apt-get upgrade". I have found that I cannot ping anything from the RevPi, so I think this may be blocked and therefore have not been able to tell if the NTP server is accessible. I have only managed to set the time by disabling NTP now! Below are the commands. I have since set the time zone to Europe/London and reset the time.

RevPI-settime.png (46.91 KiB) Viewed 11489 times

On your second point, I checked the kern.log and found the error message you mentioned. I deleted the log, rebooted and the message is no longer there. So, I will try this week to see if the RTC maintains the time overnight and see if I can establish a connection with a time server.

Thanks for your help

Ray

[zhan]

you are welcome Ray,

maybe you can also post the kern.log here, then I can check whether other suspicious points are there.

Regards,
Simon

[sofiene]

hello
i have the same problem the date is stuck at 12/01/2022 and the time is not right
when i set it manually it goes wrong when i reboot the device

when executing "timedatectl status"
i get a message :

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Failed to query server: Failed to read RTC: Invalid argument

the "timedatectl show-timesync" output :

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FallbackNTPServers=0.debian.pool.ntp.org 1.debian.pool.ntp.org 2.debian.pool.ntp.org 3.debian.pool.ntp.org
ServerName=3.debian.pool.ntp.org
ServerAddress=169.239.132.102
RootDistanceMaxUSec=5s
PollIntervalMinUSec=32s
PollIntervalMaxUSec=34min 8s
PollIntervalUSec=34min 8s
Frequency=0

and the kern file shows the following error

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Jan 12 16:34:24 RevPi59729 kernel: [ 3749.508656] rtc-pcf2127-i2c 1-0051: oscillator stop detected, date/time is not reliable

lastly i tried to use ping command on the ntp servers and the ip addresses shown in the "timedatectl show-timesync" command output but with no use