Time setting is incorrect. GUI set to Europe/ London where time is 11:54 but screen shows 12:54, i.e. 1PM

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1

Ubuntu Support Template

Ubuntu Version:
Latest LTS. Sorry, Forget number, but, installed yesterday.

Desktop Environment (if applicable)
GNOME

Problem Description:
Time is wrong since install, despite correct setting in installer and and verified in Ubuntu.

I have found a simillar issue in Mint but this did not help.

3

Please show us the full output for timedatectl

When posting back, click on </> in the composer and paste the terminal output in the grey line before saving.

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4 
           Local time: Sat 2026-07-18 14:20:50 BST
           Universal time: Sat 2026-07-18 13:20:50 UTC
                 RTC time: Sat 2026-07-18 13:20:50
                Time zone: Europe/London (BST, +0100)
System clock synchronized: no
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

Dear @rubi1200 I can see a couple of places where the problem may lie, i.e not synchronised, or it’s trying BST + 1? TIA for your help!

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Synchronizing the system clock should fix the problem.

sudo timedatectl set-ntp true

If for some reason you don’t see the change immediately, restart the service.

sudo systemctl restart systemd-timesyncd

You can then verify with timedatectl again if needs be.

Just to check before proceeding, is this Ubuntu on its own or are you dual-booting with Windows?

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6

Getting closer, but, when restarting service I get:

Failed to restart systemd-timesyncd.service: Unit systemd-timesyncd.service not found.
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I just needed to run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install systemd-timesyncd

before the commands you suggested above! Missing package. I work with R day to day and I knew the problem solving would transfer!

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8

To confirm, timedatectl now shows everything correctly and your clocks are synchronized?

9

Yes, timedatectl is correct, and my laptop’s clock matches my mobile and the BBC etc.

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10

That’s great to hear.

Please help the community by marking the relevant post as the solution.

Thanks

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11

That’s not quite correct, because in the current LTS version, 26.04, chrony has replaced systemd-timesyncd, which is why that command failed. timedatectl, while geared towards systemd-timesyncd, can still be used without it, albeit not all of its commands.

The real reason for this output:

is very likely connected to this question:

which you didn’t answer, so I’ll hazard the guess that you are, in fact dual-booting with Windows, which does expect the clock to be in local time, whereas above command shows that the default on Linux is UTC (RTC in local TZ: no). Booting Windows in between Linux sessions will thus, in your case, always cause a clock offset of one hour, which is just too big of a difference for chrony to cope, without additional measures. As a timekeeping daemon it’s supposed to adjust for small drifts in the millisecond range; seconds, tops, not hours. That kind of offset is cause for alarm in its world and hence it denies service (System clock synchronized: no). You’ll probably find messages to that effect in your boot logs.

Long story short, it wasn’t a missing systemd-timesyncd causing this, and you might want to revert that change back to chrony, if you want to stay with Ubuntu defaults. Then you need to decide, which system to change. While it may be tempting to just RTC in local TZ: yes, that has other implications, like a warping clock signal on DST changes, which will upset Chrony, if it happens in its absence.

1 Like
12

My bad.

I am still on 24.04 and completely forgot that chrony became the default in 26.04

It would be helpful to know if this is a dual-boot with Windows.