The other day I was unable to log in to one of my financial accounts. Took several days to work out what the problem was, but now it seems that my computer clock was several minutes wrong. The web site requires you to use
an authenticator app, and my app was generating the wrong codes from the system clock.
Why was the clock wrong? The GUI Time and Date Settings utility had "Keep synchronised with Internet servers" selected, though it didn't provide a
way of choosing an NTP. You'd have thought this meant it would go to a default server, but it obviously hadn't.
Turns out that my version of LM doesn't come with the service that keeps
the clock synced to an NTP server.
I did some research and found that LM's utility (or setting, whatever you call it) for doing this is systemd-timesyncd.service. But it had either
never been installed, or was masked, or had not been set to start up, and nowhere is there a prompt telling users to do this. Nor am I the first
person to be troubled by this.
WTF?
Turns out that my version of LM doesn't come with the service that keeps
the clock synced to an NTP server.
The other day I was unable to log in to one of my financial accounts. Took several days to work out what the problem was, but now it seems that my computer clock was several minutes wrong. The web site requires you to use an authenticator app, and my app was generating the wrong codes from the system clock.
Why was the clock wrong? The GUI Time and Date Settings utility had "Keep synchronised with Internet servers" selected, though it didn't provide a
way of choosing an NTP. You'd have thought this meant it would go to a default server, but it obviously hadn't.
Turns out that my version of LM doesn't come with the service that keeps
the clock synced to an NTP server.
I did some research and found that LM's utility (or setting, whatever you call it) for doing this is systemd-timesyncd.service. But it had either never been installed, or was masked, or had not been set to start up, and nowhere is there a prompt telling users to do this. Nor am I the first person to be troubled by this.
WTF?
My time is off by 1.835 seconds at the moment. The last sync was 30
minutes ago.
Desktop: Xfce 4.18.1
Distro: Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
if yours isn't working like the default condition, something
must've happened to de-activate it.
To activate NTP in Linux Mint, open the Date & Time settings and
toggle "Network time" on,
or use the terminal command timedatectl set-ntp on. If it remains
inactive, install or restart systemd-timesyncd using sudo apt
install systemd-timesyncd and sudo systemctl restart systemd-
timesyncd
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:08:49 -0500, Paul wrote:
My time is off by 1.835 seconds at the moment. The last sync was 30
minutes ago.
That sounds unusually bad. On my systems, the time stays accurate to
within a second.
From years ago, I would do tests like
ssh -2customerrCOs premises machine-+ time
time
and have both show the same time.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:08:12 -0000 (UTC), Handsome Jack wrote:
I did some research and found that LM's utility (or setting, whatever
you call it) for doing this is systemd-timesyncd.service.
But it had either never been installed, or was masked, or had not been
set to start up ...
systemctl status systemd-timesyncd.service
to find out for sure.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 21:26:51 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:08:12 -0000 (UTC), Handsome Jack wrote:
I did some research and found that LM's utility (or setting,
whatever you call it) for doing this is systemd-timesyncd.service.
But it had either never been installed, or was masked, or had not
been set to start up ...
systemctl status systemd-timesyncd.service
to find out for sure.
Not very user-friendly though, is it?
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 21:26:51 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 11:08:12 -0000 (UTC), Handsome Jack wrote:
I did some research and found that LM's utility (or setting, whatever
you call it) for doing this is systemd-timesyncd.service.
But it had either never been installed, or was masked, or had not been
set to start up ...
systemctl status systemd-timesyncd.service
to find out for sure.
Not very user-friendly though, is it? I can't understand why the GUI 'Time and Date' app doesn't allow you to adjust it. Or why it isn't the default
in the first place.
I can't understand why the GUI 'Time and Date' app doesn't allow you
to adjust it. Or why it isn't the default in the first place.
The only .conf file I could find that had the Ub NTP in it was commented out, so that wasn't the 'real' one.
Then, as to the qx of 'what went wrong' for the past year that you
didn't have an operational NTP process, perhaps it was b0rken from
the gitgo somehow during the install, otherwise something must've
b0rked it along the way.
I see /etc/ntp.conf on my LM 18.3 partition (incidentally Xfce)
based on Ubuntu 16.04. Ubuntu started replaced ntpdate and ntp with timedatectl and timesyncd since 16.04. No /etc/ntp.conf present on
my LM 19.3 Cinnamon partition. I'm not sure that it's Xfce related,
more like systemd implementation
So on an old xfce 20.3, it is necessary for the user to manually fix the errant NTP, either by installing the systemd service or fixing the name
of the time server.
The LM forum says to choose your NTP by uncommenting that line and
you can also configure another fallback in the same place:
/etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf
[Time]
#NTP=
#FallbackNTP=ntp.ubuntu.com
uncomment & populate NTP=
optional an alternate Fallback
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=378554
Mike Easter wrote:
Then, as to the qx of 'what went wrong' for the past year that you
didn't have an operational NTP process, perhaps it was b0rken from the
gitgo somehow during the install, otherwise something must've b0rked it
along the way.
Aha! Here's a data point.
I booted a live LM XFCE 20.3. Its native configuration is NOT the same
as the current (including your 21.3 and 22 XFCE & Cinn).
It uses the older ntp system as described at my earlier msg LM forum: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=378554
So, if I'm trying to figger out how something went wrong in your system, maybe it started w/ an earlier xfce like 20.3 to graduate/upgrade to 21
and something went wrong in the transition from the older ntp:
I see /etc/ntp.conf on my LM 18.3 partition (incidentally Xfce) based
on Ubuntu 16.04. Ubuntu started replaced ntpdate and ntp with
timedatectl and timesyncd since 16.04. No /etc/ntp.conf present on my
LM 19.3 Cinnamon partition. I'm not sure that it's Xfce related,
more like systemd implementation
On that live 20.3 xfce, if I status:
systemctl status systemd-timesyncd
... now I get loaded masked and inactive dead because that isn't how
the ntp is handled on the older xfce.
If I continue to explore what is my problem, I find that while the
system is *supposed to* get the NTP, it fails because it is trying to
use a now 'bad' NTP at freedesktop.
So on an old xfce 20.3, it is necessary for the user to manually fix the errant NTP, either by installing the systemd service or fixing the name
of the time server.
On Sun, 1 Feb 2026 10:12:27 -0800, Mike Easter wrote:
So on an old xfce 20.3, it is necessary for the user to manually
fix the errant NTP, either by installing the systemd service or
fixing the name of the time server.
LM is never going to be a mass-market product while new users are
faced with this sort of thing. They'll just give up and go back to
Windows.
On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:08:49 -0500, Paul wrote:
My time is off by 1.835 seconds at the moment. The last sync was 30
minutes ago.
That sounds unusually bad. On my systems, the time stays accurate to
within a second.
From years ago, I would do tests like
ssh -2customerrCOs premises machine-+ time time
and have both show the same time.
| Sysop: | Amessyroom |
|---|---|
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