Kernel clock issue "Clocksource tsc unstable"

[Hal Burgiss]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 06:30:30PM -0800, NoOp wrote:

> I wonder if perhaps when Hal reboots his machines the reason why the
> clocks/dates get readjusted properly is because the boot causes the
> ntpdata script to run:
> 
> /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate
> 
> and hence resync?
> 
> @Hal: next time, instead of rebooting (you'll still have to go to the
> data center most likely), you might try
> sudo /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate
> first. If that resyncs the machine properly without the reboot, then you
> might want to look into running ntp on those machines if you aren't
> already. And if you are running ntp, have a look at the ntp source. You
> can elect to have multiple sources; I use 0.us.pool.ntp.org and have
> 1.us.pool.ntp.org as the backup. Just a thought...

NoOp,

I am doing time syncs regularly now on all machines. I have also done
a manual sync when I noticed the clock was way off the first time. The
time reset to the correct time just fine. But it would not update. So
I sit at the prompt and type 'date' over and over, and it is always
the same, give or take. (Reminds me of an old Twilight Zone where the
guy broke the magic watch and time stood still forever!). It sometimes
will read a second or two less, but it never goes back to incrementing
like it should. You can sit there for an hour, and it will be within a
second or two of whenever the time was synced last. I know this sounds
strange, but the clock is just stuck. 

Also, by this point, daemons like syslog have stopped completely.
Resyncing time does not help. Restarting syslog will cause the
terminal to completely hang. Ctrl-c does nothing. The system is
screwed. I tried typing 'reboot' today, and the system hung at (IIRC)
shutting down mysql. Some daemons will work fine under the
circumstances and some don't. I had no trouble connecting to Apache on
the same machine. The price of sanity is a reset. 

My time syncs run at :05 on all machines. That is also always the time
the clock always stops at. 

Thanks.

-- 
Hal