Time and Date Issue

All of a sudden, Time and Date won’t open – getting a “Message token Message token th not found not found” *time gets me: “Message token Message token D02 not found not found”

It was opening earlier today. The year was set to 1900 and I adjusted it and now it won’t load. Trying to investigate setting a different network time server because I think the network time server for the network it’s on is handing out a server from DHCP and it’s not working – always says ‘Busy’.

What RISC OS version are you running, and on what hardware?
Have you changed anything since it last worked?
Does it still fail after a re-boot?
Those message tokens are not in the TimeSetup Messages file in RO500Hook, so not sure what is asking for them.

RISC OS 5.30 on a Pi 3b. It failed after a reboot each time.

I deleted the CMOS file from the Loader folder and restarted. No more error message in Config when opening Date and Time after a restart However, now my Pinboard customization is gone and it keeps booting into a low-res mode even after saving the CMOS and copying the file into Loader and restarting.

Have you checked that all CMOS settings are ok?
See https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/CMOS%20RAM%20on%20the%20Raspberry%20Pi

All good now. I must have been tired and forgot to ‘set’ the screen resolution after trying it. That and I needed to unplug BootFX.

Is there a way to set the clock with network time, when DHCP is passing out the NTP server? It is greyed out to change in Time and Date.

I think mine is from DHCP also, as the server is faded, but it works fine. It is the address of my router, which provides an NTP service. What does command *NetTime_Status show?

Are you sure it comes from DHCP? Mine is faded because the “Pick server automatically” option is ticked; in that case I think it pings pool.ntp.org to get the address of a timeserver to connect to…

In the “Time and date” window:

if the “Set manually” radio button is selected, the entire “Set from the network” section is greyed out because it’s not in use. As expected.

if the “Set from the network” radio button is set, the “Set manually” section is greyed out. In addition, if the “Pick a server automatically” box is ticked, the writable icon for the server address is greyed out, because it’s not in use. As expected.

Does yours behave differently?

My setup does not have “Pick a server automatically” ticked, and the server address is uk.pool.ntp.org

@Dave: I agree that what is expected is as you say.
However, I have ‘Set from the network’ selected, but the NTP Server name is faded, but correctly set to 10.0.0.1 as I have a NTP server on my router.
However, the ‘Pick a server automatically’ is selected … but also faded.
I have not discovered how to un-fade them, and hence I cannot change them even if I wanted to!
Fortunately it works fine as like is – both on my Titanium and RPi4.
Perhaps they are faded if a local NTP server is found?

It’s faded out when using DHCP rather than configuring the network manually.

After a few experiments, I can confirm that if you have a time server service available under DHCP, then as soon as you click ‘Set from the network’ the ‘Pick server automatically’ is selected and faded, and the server name is filled in and also faded.

If I disable my router time server service, and select ‘Pick server automatically’ with the server name of pool.ntp.org just the server name is faded, but Try just returns ‘Busy’, which is what the OP described above. I never use pool.ntp.org, but I seem to remember others having problems with it?

For the record: At RISC OS 5.30, “Pick a server automatically” is greyed-out if the system variable INet$NTPServer exists. This has been the case since 2012 at least, so is either “a bug of long standing” or “Working As Designed”.

Interesting. I do have Inet$NTPServer set … but something sets it during Boot, and it is not done by a set command.
Ahah! It is done by the DHCPExecute command in Choices:Internet.Startup.

“Pick a server automatically” is greyed-out if the system variable INet$NTPServer exists […]

Page 108 of the User Guide should explain things, it’s certainly describes the exact greying-out logic being observed, which is working as designed.

That will teach me to look in the latest 5.30 Guide, rather than my 5.24 paper tome!

Same here Martin. I bought a paper copy of the 5.30 guide. I should have looked there for my NTP issues. My issue is though, the status is always ‘Busy’ for some reason it won’t sync the time and I was looking for a way to change it.

server name of pool.ntp.org just the server name is faded, but Try just returns ‘Busy’, which is what the OP described above

Playing the same game I found that ‘uk.pool.ntp.org’ gave a reliable return.

When I get the issue of it saying ‘busy’ I just change the server address or find the NTP servers IP address and use that instead. If your entry says uk.pool.ntp.org then change it to say to say pool.ntp.org and then click on TRY that usually fixes it for that session. It will say Sync success if it has worked.

Another NTP address is time.windows.com

The issue is, since DHCP is handing out the NTP address, I am unable to change it because it is greyed out. No big deal. I will just leave it to ‘Set manually’

What address is Inet$NTPServer being set to by DHCP?
Is that address a local one one your LAN, or a remote one on the internet?
If local, can you stop DHCP giving it to you?

Note that if ‘Set Manually’ then I do not think NetTime will auto-correct your clock.

It’s a local address of the DHCP server. I guess I can always assign myself a static IP address.

Can you stop the DHCP server from propagating the NTP address?
MIne is on a FristBox router, and I can just turn the server part off.
But if it returns busy, then it implies something is wrong at the DHCP end if it is giving out a non-working address?

I can’t stop it. I am on a business network with my Pi3b. At home, it works just fine. I am going to wireshark it though to see if I see any messages.

And now Time and Date has another error message. “Message token Message token rd not found not found”

Deleting CMOS file and recreating it solves the issue. DataPower would not open either, gave me the same error message.