# Clock and date resetting to 1969??



## Graphix (Oct 30, 2001)

Weird stuff happening,

Im running 10.1 on G4 450 DP. Every once and a while the clock will reset itself to some arbitrary time of day, but best of all the date will reset to December 1969. This is embarassing when you send email.

Does anyone know whats up with this?


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## The Munk (Oct 30, 2001)

I'm getting the exact same thing happening here...it's pretty screwy. If anybody knows what to do about this, I'd love to know...it's a pain in bum


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## Graphix (Oct 30, 2001)

I suspected the " TinkerTool " app... Got rid of it, but the anomaly is still occurring.


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## Jadey (Oct 30, 2001)

Replace your computer's battery. (The small one inside that looks almost like a regular battery - not a notebook battery). This will fix it.


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## Graphix (Oct 30, 2001)

re: replace the battery...

Thanks for the advice, but this seems like a software issue in 10.1 because it doesnt happen under OS 9.2.1.


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## Graphix (Oct 30, 2001)

Thanks testuser,

I didnt have 'network time' selected. This might work. Cool. This forum rocks!


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## jcbphi (Oct 31, 2001)

While setting up network time may end up fixing the problem, it is still a good idea to follow Jadey's advice and replace the internal battery.  The reason why the date is resetting to 1969 without network time synchonization is probably that the information in PRAM is being erased.  Dead battery = erased PRAM.  Using network time sychronization is a fine workaround for the date and time being reset, but there are other parameters stored in PRAM which are being reset because the bad battery.  I can't say I recall exactly what these are, but its a good idea to play it safe and replace the battery, rather than risking some system info being lost.

As for it not affecting MacOS 9...I don't know.  I'd run into this problem years ago running MacOS 7.0.1 on a Mac LCII, and the date and time only reset intermittantly.  Batteries are cheap, and fairly easy to install (Apple has decent walkthroughs).  Better safe than sorry...


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## LordOphidian (Oct 31, 2001)

Another reason that checking your battery is good, is that if your battery is dead and the clock is resetting every time you turn the computer off, you will get massive (30+ years) uptimes since NTP only sets the clock after the computer has been started up, so it takes the 1969 date as the startup date, then the time is changed, and it compares that to the 1969 date to see how long its been up.

Although maybe you should just leave it the way it is, since it will make for good screen shots


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## iceyg (Oct 31, 2001)

yeah, well I get the same deal but when I boot 9 the clock is back to normal, so it isn't my battery.  When I boot X the clock doesn't get fixed, and I have network time set on.  I just have to open date and time and tell it to sync everytime I boot up, that's my work around.  I should make an apple script to do this and throw it in my startup or I mean login items if it is possible...


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## Brenden (Nov 10, 2001)

I am also having my date and time reset every second time or so when starting up into X 10.1 . I also have a DP 450 G4 Powermac. I have no such trouble when booting into 9.2.1  . One thing I do notice is that the times the clock is reset the computer takes an unusually long time booting up pausing for about 40 seconds on the grey screen with the little folder (?) icon on it - and occassionally not booting up at all with the folder icon showing a break in the middle of it.

This must be a 10.1 software issue with DP 450's or DP's in general


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## Solaris (Nov 11, 2001)

Just a bit of general unix info:

1 Jan 1970 is the unix epoch. The unix date command works out how many seconds have passed since 00:00:00 1 Jan 1970. eg:


[localhost:~] spencer% date -r 1000000000
Sun Sep  9 01:46:40 GMT 2001


That was the 'bi-lennium' that passed recently. So when your clocks get set to a pre epoch date, something is screwed!


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## TommyWillB (Nov 11, 2001)

> _Originally posted by iceyg _
> *yeah, well I get the same deal but when I boot 9 the clock is back to normal, so it isn't my battery.  When I boot X the clock doesn't get fixed, and I have network time set on.  I just have to open date and time and tell it to sync everytime I boot up, that's my work around.  I should make an apple script to do this and throw it in my startup or I mean login items if it is possible... *


Maybe you have the time synchronizing under OS 9. (I think that setting is in the Date & time control panel.) If that is on, it could be masking the problem under OS 9.

Radio Shack usually has these batteries... I think I paid less for it last time than you pay for camera batteries. ($3-$10)

After you do this, run something to fix all of your file modified times. They will all be out of wack...


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## TommyWillB (Nov 11, 2001)

> _Originally posted by Brenden _
> *I am also having my date and time reset every second time or so when starting up into X 10.1 . I also have a DP 450 G4 Powermac. I have no such trouble when booting into 9.2.1  . One thing I do notice is that the times the clock is reset the computer takes an unusually long time booting up pausing for about 40 seconds on the grey screen with the little folder (?) icon on it - and occassionally not booting up at all with the folder icon showing a break in the middle of it.
> 
> This must be a 10.1 software issue with DP 450's or DP's in general *


That too is related to your PRAM getting zapped... thus also related to having a dead/dieing battery.


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## TommyWillB (Nov 11, 2001)

> _Originally posted by Solaris _
> *Just a bit of general unix info:
> 
> 1 Jan 1970 is the unix epoch. The unix date command works out how many seconds have passed since 00:00:00 1 Jan 1970. eg:
> ...


The combination of the battery dieing, the PRAM being zapped, and the date being reset probably can be combined with some Daylight Savings time oddity to make the date look like December 31, 1969.


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## Brenden (Nov 15, 2001)

Thanks for the suggestion of replacing the battery - which I did a few days ago, but low and behold my clock has been reset to 1 Jan 1970 again today apon start up. It must be a software bug with DP 450's. Any more suggestions anyone? P.S I am now running 10.1.1 and it still reset the clock


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## blb (Nov 15, 2001)

It seems this is a pretty common thing now on the DP machines (there's a quick blurb about it at xlr8yourmac).

Do you see something like,


```
ApplePlatformExpert::getGMTTimeOfDay can not provide time of day RTC did not show up
```

in /var/log/system.log?  I think that may be the first clue, at least on my G4/500DP.


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## Leonis (Nov 22, 2001)

I too have a DP machine (500) and have the exact same date and time problem 

OS 9 is fine though


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## Kalman (Nov 23, 2001)

I have a PM G4 450DP (Gigabit Ethernet) and I have the same problem. I have spoken with Apple and they confirm that it is a bug and will have a fix for it soon.

It is not the clock battery, as Mac OS 9 is fine. It is not a PRAM issue, as Mac OS X does not rely on PRAM other than for start-up info.

Once again Mac OS X, designed for dual processor machines, has a glitch with dual processor machines. First PPP and now this.


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## SCrossman (Dec 11, 2001)

I was at my Dad's house tonight and he has a G4 400 Yikes tower which is also reverting to 12-31-69. I arrived, the Mac was sleeping, woke it up running in OS 9, the clock was correct. I then rebooted into OS X(10.1.1) and it was 12-31-69. The battery was never replaced, but he runs in OS 9 for many days without a problem. The battery was still @ 3.1v (the battery is 3.6v) as measured with a volt meter.
There is no additional hardware in this machine other than a second IDE drive!
There was at one time an Adaptec 2906 card, but it was removed when I installed X.
I looked in Console and could not see any messages  what I thought related to the problem.
Rebooted in OS 9 and back again, all was fine. 
On a slightly different note, during the time I upgraded some apps, I had problems placing any item in the dock. Nothing would stay there. I deleted the com.apple.com.dock.plist file and that fixed the problem.


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## edX (Dec 11, 2001)

isn't it obvious, apple just wants to transport us back to the good old days when think different was long hair and peace. '69 - the summer of love 

groooovy man!


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## SCrossman (Dec 11, 2001)

> _Originally posted by Ed Spruiell _
> *isn't it obvious, apple just wants to transport us back to the good old days when think different was long hair and peace. '69 - the summer of love
> 
> groooovy man! *



Well Ed I can see by your profile we were both there, unlike a lot of posters here in the fori  Imagine what it would be like now, if we had computers then.


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## edX (Dec 11, 2001)

we did, and we played pong on them 

seriously, i'm not sure i would have paid any attention. too much else was going on. the world was a very different place. not really a better place, but very different than now. 

well, the music was better. 

'truckin', i got my chips cashed in
truckin', just like the doodah man...."

I can hear the young ones muttering to themselves about now -
"d*mned old farts - wasting bandwidth with this junk"


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## WoLF (Dec 11, 2001)

Its not only DPs!!!

This is happening on my 400MHZ iMac Summer 2000.
I know for sure that the Battery aint the problem since someone posted it. At work I rounded up 3 batteries to test once I goto the office sometime.
I set up network time before I read this because I figured it would fix the problem. And it did.


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## SCrossman (Dec 11, 2001)

Wolf is right, it isn't a MP problem !  More like a G4 tower AGP - OS X something!  I noticed that the menu bar clock was always a GMT 24hr clock when the problem occurred. One would expect to use the Date-Time panel to set a 24hr clock, but instead the International Panel is used to set a 24 hr (military time).


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## hotani (Dec 12, 2001)

I have had the same problem on a 2001 iBook (dual usb). It may have happened a couple of times, but not recently. I never did figure out what was going on.


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## kaos (Dec 12, 2001)

The first thing I would suggest to do before buying and installing a new battery is to reset your PRAM.  To do this, restart the computer and before the grey screen comes up you have to be holding down Command-Option-P-R simultaneously.  Continue holding these down until you hear the startup chime 3 times total, then let go.  For better instructions on how to do this and information on what's actually stored in the parameter RAM, go to http://kbase.info.apple.com and search for article number 2238.

If this doesn't remedy the clock resetting, then try resetting your Power Management Unit (PMU).  To do this, you actually have to physically push a button located near the internal battery on the logic board.  Follow the instructions on Apples Knowledge Base in article number 95037.  They have links to diagrams of the logic board of most G4's, so you should have no problem locating this button.  Read the instructions in this article carefully.  Doing this wrong could damage your computer and could cause the battery life to go from 5 years to about 2 days if the PMU isn't reset properly.

As a last resort if these two things don't correct the time resetting intermittently, reset Open Firmware.  To do this, restart the computer and hold down Command-Option-O-F during the startup chime.  A white screen should come up with a bunch of jibberish about the version of Open Firmware you have installed.  From here, (all lowercase, no spaces, no quotes) type "reset-all" and hit return.  It will restart your computer and reset Open Firmware settings to their default.

None of these steps will damage any data on your hard drive or cause any damage to the computer itself.  The most it will do is reset your date and time and reset other settings outlined in the article I mentioned about resetting PRAM.

It could be a file corrupted on your hard drive, so you could also try running fsck from single user mode in OS X.  Restart the computer holding down Command-S, and when it finishes loading and gets to the point where you can type in a command, type "fsck -y" (no quotes, all lowercase) and if it finds any errors and has to modify your file system, run it again until it doesn't find any errors.  When it reports "Volume appears to be ok", then type "reboot" and hit return to startup OS X normally.

If none of these things work, then yeah, you should go buy a new battery  : ]

Good luck.


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## kaos (Dec 12, 2001)

Oh yeah.. and you could also try deleting com.apple.MenuBarClock.plist from your preferences folder in your home folder as well.  Although I really doubt this would correct the problem, give it a try.  Who knows, right?  : ]


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## TommyWillB (Dec 16, 2001)

I read something on MacInTouch that said putting you machine to sleep for 5 minutes will correct the reset-to-1969 issue.

Sounds odd, but I thought I'd mention it...


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## RacerX (Dec 17, 2001)

Strangely enough, I had a problem that was not all that different from yours. After the last time change I reset my clock in OS X. The next time I restarted into 9.2 the time was back to the original setting. No problem, I just reset the time and when on with what I was working on. Restarted into OS X, and there it was an hour off again! This happen 5 times. Finally I restarted into 9.0.4 (default install of original OS for the system that I have on my utilities partition for emergencies) and reset the time there. THAT fixed it.

Odds are that it was originally the battery in your case, but now you're stuck in the same loop I was in. I'm not sure what you can do, if I didn't have that third operating system on mine, I would still be off by an hour today. Maybe starting off the original install disk for your system (or a version of 9 before 9.2.1) would help in resetting your clock.


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## ruperthemoose (Feb 14, 2007)

I've been having EXACTLY the same problem with my machine. A G4 powerbook with a deffective battery which has been deteriorating over time... Wonder why this date specifically...


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## fryke (Feb 14, 2007)

It's just a date. You choose one that's definitely in the past. Apropos: You've revived a _very_ old thread. But I guess your problem's solved?


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## ruperthemoose (Feb 14, 2007)

yeah... I hope I have. the computer seems to have other problems with slowdown and freezing up on occasion. I do often circle around the lower end of a gigabyte which I hear isnt such a great idea. I'm farely new to macs so i'm unfamiliar with the diagnostics programs. Regardless... my battery now simply has a great big "X" on it instead of a percentile rating, so I guess today was really it's last gasp...


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## fryke (Feb 15, 2007)

Yep, your battery seems dead, then. I'd try taking it out, leaving it for a day or two and then put it in again, just to see whether it comes back alive. But if it's been deteriorating for so long, it might well just be dead. Replacements from newertech or fastmac should help. 

As for the low disk space: Yeah, that _really_ makes a change in performance. Keep 2-3 GB free and it's much better already. There's some percentage rule floating around, but I'd simply keep as _much_ free as possible.


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## sprale (Feb 6, 2009)

I have a dozen or so MacPro and PowerMacs in a domain environment, working from an Xserve. When an individual system has this issue while working on a server-based file, the file gets tagged with the date on the server. It's a battery issue on the workstation. The date seems to be an arbitrary one chosen at an early stage in Mac development, because I've seen this issue back in the beginning of (UNIX) OS X.



> This is due to OS X's UNIX underpinnings. In UNIX systems, the time is internally represented as seconds elapsed since the stroke of midnight, 00:00 GMT, January 1st, 1970. To the nerds, this is known as the "UNIX epoch." If this counter gets reset to zero or somehow becomes negative, it's 1969 all over again as far as your computer knows.



To UNIX-based systems, they have difficulty dealing with any time before the epoch.



> "This message indicates that the Time Of Day (TOD) clock reads zero, so its time is the beginning of the UNIX epoch: midnight 31 December 1969. On a brand-new system, the manufacturer might have neglected to initialize the system clock. On older systems it is more likely that the rechargeable battery has run out and requires replacement."



Has everyone forgotten about MacOS defaulting under similar circumstances to 1904?


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## Giaguara (Feb 6, 2009)

Hi Sprale, good info but the thread is a bit ancient...
Not from 1904 though  I have some files that I recovered from some old appleshare that I didn't bother to correct the date afterwards.


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## TommyWillB (Feb 6, 2009)

Giaguara,

sprale meant Mac OS "Classic"... 

I know this is pre-history for a lot of OS X users, but Mac OS did in-fact revert to 1904 when the battery died... Not to 1970 as our shiny "new" OS X 'nix does.


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## nixgeek (Feb 6, 2009)

Yup, TWB is right.  Whenever the PRAM battery would die on the Macs, Classic Mac OS would revert back to the year 1904.


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## sprale (Feb 6, 2009)

TommyWillB said:


> Giaguara,
> 
> sprale meant Mac OS "Classic"...



It was never "Classic" to me! I kept my Quadra well past Y2K.


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## Giaguara (Feb 6, 2009)

Well - I never run queries to see which precise OS those files had been once hosted in. 
Probably whatever was the current when there were some Newton developer files...


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