Windows Server 2012 DC loses time sync after reboot/dcpromo

active-directorytime-synchronizationvmware-vspherewindows-server-2012

I'm currently experiencing an issue that has baffled me for the past few days as none of my searches here or google yielded in any positive results.

Our current environment has 19 sites with as many DCs all running Windows Server 2003.

  • The FFL and DFL are both set to 2003.
  • The schema and domain have be prepped to accept new Windows Server 2012 DCs.
  • The PDC is syncing with an external, reliable time source.
  • Other DCs are syncing time with the PDC.
  • New servers/DCs are virtualized under vSphere 5.1

So far so good. When I bring in a member server running Server 2012 time sync works as expected.

The error happens after I promote this member server to DC role. After the 1st reboot (once promotion is complete) the new DC looses it's time sync and goes back to October 24th 2012. Which causes, as many of you expect, an insane amount of issues. I'm able to log on to the server's console, set the time correctly and eventually, synchronization continues and the DC can authenticate users once again. But if I ever reboot the server…it goes back in time.

I've tested this with other member servers running 2012 and I'm unable to reproduce the issue. It's only happening after I dcpromo.

  • In the virtual machine properties it is NOT set to sync time with the host (doing so had no positive effect)
  • vmware tools are installed on the server.

The only error related to Time-Service in the system logs is the following:

The time service has detected that the system time needs to be changed by 4160907 seconds. The time service will not change the system time by more than 172800 seconds. Verify that your time and time zone are correct, and that the time source [redacted] (ntp.d|0.0.0.0:123->[redacted]:123) is working properly.

Thanks for your help!

Francis

Best Answer

I'd still look at the vSphere host settings as a potential cause. What is the date and time on those servers?

Have you tried setting them to sync with your PDC for time and then allow the VMs to sync with the host?

Also, what happens when you run w32tm /resync? Does your server pull the correct time from the PDC? There should be an event log entry stating which server it synced with.

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