Why is the time not syncing?

I want the time to sync, but it's not. I tried running the following commands, but it's still not syncing.

# timedatectl set-ntp off
# timedatectl set-ntp on
# timedatectl status Local time: Fri 2021-08-06 20:01:43 EDT Universal time: Sat 2021-08-07 00:01:43 UTC RTC time: Fri 2021-08-06 20:01:43 Time zone: America/New_York (EDT, -0400) System clock synchronized: no
systemd-timesyncd.service active: yes RTC in local TZ: no

Edit: More info

systemctl status systemd-timesyncd
● systemd-timesyncd.service - Network Time Synchronization Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-timesyncd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2021-08-07 15:26:10 EDT; 58min ago Docs: man:systemd-timesyncd.service(8) Process: 9351 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-timesyncd (code=exited, status=238/STATE_DIRECTORY) Main PID: 9351 (code=exited, status=238/STATE_DIRECTORY)
# journalctl -u systemd-timesyncd
1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Service has no hold-off time, scheduling restart.
1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
1]: Stopped Network Time Synchronization.
1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
1]: Failed to start Network Time Synchronization.

Running Ubuntu 18.04. Internet works and can browse the internet.

5

3 Answers

Apparently there was a directory permissions bug and it affects multiple distros. The solution is simple.

$ sudo chmod 0700 /var/lib/private
$ sudo systemctl restart systemd-timesyncd
$ sudo timedatectl status

Also, this may or may not be needed:

$ sudo rm -r /var/lib/private/systemd

Source:

  1. Check you ntp configuration in /etc/ntp.conf

$ cat /etc/ntp.conf

...
pool 0.ubuntu.pool.ntp.org iburst
pool 1.ubuntu.pool.ntp.org iburst
pool 2.ubuntu.pool.ntp.org iburst
pool 3.ubuntu.pool.ntp.org iburst 

edit the file if necessary (nano /etc/ntp.conf)

  1. Run the following command to restart the service

sudo service ntp restart

  1. Lastly, if you have an UFW firewall enabled on your system you will need to open the NTP UDP port 123 for incoming connections:

$ sudo ufw allow from any to any port 123 proto udp

3

Check logs: journalctl -u systemd-timesyncd

My problem was about root distance parameter (I have bad Windows Server sync server). Increase RootDistanceMaxSec from default value 5 to 15 fixed my problem.

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