Irritating " The current time on this computer and the current time' error

[localzuk]

Randomly, different machines in the school are getting the typical " The current time on this computer and the current time on the network are different" error when users attempt logging on.

The problem is, the time does not differ between the machines by more than half a minute.

Could someone give me some help to explain why this is happening, and what might fix it?

The only 'way around' we've found is to drop the computer from domain, and rejoin - but I don't want to do this with 300 computers, if they all start doing it.

[srochford]

Any errors from the time service in the event log?

Add

w32tm /resync

as part of the machine start up script (shouldn't be necessary but it might just give it a kick)

[localzuk]

Appears the fix is:

Log in local to the machine, open Command Prompt and run
net use \\server /user:username
net time \\server /set
Rejoin the domain
Restart

What a faff!!

[Dos_Box]

It was always the case that back in teh NT 4.0 days your logon script would always contain a Net Time command. Saved a lot of faffing back then, still relevant now it appears.

[elsiegee40]

I get this on the machines that have dodgy batteries on their motherboards (only 2 fortunately). The solution is never to turn them off at the wall - or if they do get turned off at the wall, then reset the clock by going into the bios setup on boot. I can usually get it close enough.

[chazzy2501]

you can set the time difference in Group policy if your PCs are already really close. The default is 5 minutes though, so someone must have fiddled.

[localzuk]

No-one has fiddled - the clocks match perfectly on the machines. ie. The server has 15:26:30 and the client has 15:26:30 yet the client still complains...

[powdarrmonkey]

The relative time is important because the default lifetime of a kerberos ticket is five minutes; more variation than this and tickets are invalid even as they are issued.

[SYNACK]

Are the timezones all correct on the machines, a 12 hour offset for a differing timezone could easily cause this and may be easy to miss.

[localzuk]

Are the timezones all correct on the machines, a 12 hour offset for a differing timezone could easily cause this and may be easy to miss.

Yup. All the machines are as they should be. The time is correct, timezone also. Nothing has changed on them - ie. many are exactly the same as they were at the end of last term, when they worked properly...

[john]

It was always the case that back in teh NT 4.0 days your logon script would always contain a Net Time command. Saved a lot of faffing back then, still relevant now it appears.

I still enter that as part of logon scripts to pull them back into line and it still works even to this day (well actually not tested on W7 yet....)

[localzuk]

Ok, found out what caused this! My domain still referenced a server that I had removed from being a DC. So, whilst it wasn't a DC, it still tried to get some info from it somehow - and that server's time was out by 9 minutes.

I've now manually removed all the settings in as described in the 'manually remove a DC' instructions on the MS Knowledgebase, and fixed the time and all is well again. Stupid thing!