Bug 32232

Summary:	systemd timesync bug? "Monotonic clock jumped backwards relative to last journal entry, rotating"
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	Mészáros Csaba <csablak>
Component:	RPM Packages	Assignee:	Mageia Bug Squad <bugsquad>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	Normal	CC:	csablak, davidwhodgins, doktor5000, lewyssmith, tmb
Version:	9	Keywords:	FOR_ERRATA9, UPSTREAM
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Source RPM:	systemd-253.7-1.mga9	CVE:
Status comment:
Attachments:	dmesg output

Description Mészáros Csaba 2023-09-03 12:19:10 CEST

Description of problem:

[   17.112573] systemd-journald[449]: /var/log/journal/bade2506292040d08c16826abb6ad14e/user-10001.journal: Monotonic clock jumped backwards relative to last journal entry, rotating.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=286918

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/28250

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8794319.html?sid=77605ad67ad52eb6df6506b9898e5005

But I also have some irq error.
Is my machine dying?

Comment 1 Mészáros Csaba 2023-09-03 12:19:49 CEST

Created attachment 13969 [details]
dmesg output

CC: (none) => csablak

Comment 2 Lewis Smith 2023-09-03 21:13:55 CEST

Thank you for the report. I have just checked my own dmesg O/P and seen that error message twice - as in your attachment.
The links you gave above are useful, and show that the problem is not Mageia specific. Indeed, the only bad effect is that of rotating journals unnecessarily.

The upstream bug report:
 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/28250

> Is my machine dying?
Almost certainly not..

Unsure what to do with this. Leave it open until upstream fixes it? Close wontfix (= cannot fix)? CC'ing tmb for his opinion.

Keywords: (none) => FOR_ERRATA9, UPSTREAM
CC: (none) => lewyssmith, tmb
Summary: systemd timesync bug? => systemd timesync bug? "Monotonic clock jumped backwards relative to last journal entry, rotating"
Source RPM: (none) => systemd-253.7-1.mga9

Comment 3 Dave Hodgins 2023-09-04 23:18:26 CEST

It can also happen if the system is set to use utc, but the clock in the
hardware is set to local time, or vice-versa. Some real time clocks run too
fast when the system is powered off too.

CC: (none) => davidwhodgins

Florian Hubold 2023-09-06 18:31:08 CEST

CC: (none) => doktor5000

Comment 4 Lewis Smith 2023-09-06 21:30:43 CEST

Ping Thomas.

Comment 5 Dave Hodgins 2023-09-06 22:56:46 CEST

If the system is using ntp, the in /etc/sysconfig/ntpdate add the option
SYNC_HWCLOCK=yes

If using chrony, ensure the option rtcsync is not commented out in
/etc/chrony.conf

That way the real time clock will be synced with the cpu system clock every
boot.

If the message Monotonic clock jumped backwards still shows up every boot, it
indicates the real time clock is running faster than it should be, or is
somehow getting changed by another os such as windows.

Windows keeps the rtc set to local time by default. With linux you choose
during install. If dual booting with windows, see
https://superuser.com/questions/975717/does-windows-10-support-utc-as-bios-time

Make sure  /etc/sysconfig/clock is set correctly. I have UTC=true in my
system.