Author Topic: Warning: Windows (All In One) Repair causes Windows Time sync failure (Read 10935 times)

Jarmezrocks · « **on:** February 13, 2015, 06:35:04 am »

Hi guys,

I have been a long time user of Tweaking.com's Windows (All In One) Repair and swear by it to fix 90% of most peoples Windows computer issues. I cannot thank you enough for how happy some of the people are after I have run your tool first and foremost. Myself personally I can attest that specifically the resetting of registry permissions on numerous PCs with various ailments has fixed/cured/repaired them. My first positive experience came when I was unable to get sound drivers from the manufacturers website to install on my own PC, and using your tool fixed this along with several other issues (corrupted file system indexes etc).

More recently using your most recent version of Windows (All In One) Repair though has left many computers completely crippled with Windows Time sync errors after rebooting? 3 out of 3 recent PCs experienced these issues resulting in being unable to sync with time.windows.com as well as au.pool.ntp.org or any other time server? Further to this, the PCs could no longer access the internet displaying SSL errors; This is obviously related directly to Windows Time being out of sync. I was unable to recover these system manually from diagnosis however was able to return the computers to the previous states utilising Windows System Restore. A 4th computer utilising a solid state drive had system restore switched off and failed to restore the backed up registry and as a result required Windows to be reinstalled from the System Image I created the day before.

I found through my investigations of these machines that the issues could be caused by one or several registry related issues? Of interest I noted that the following registry key was no longer present on any of the PCs repaired by the latest Tweaking.com Windows All In One Windows Repair:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\W32Time

Upon importing this key from a known good Windows system of the same version Windows 7 Professional I was still unable to get the time service to sync?

The Windows Time Service listed in Windows Services was actually switched on and remained on even though syncing produced the errors.

Changing the Time Server to a more local location such as au.pool.ntp.org also produced the same errors, where these errors may have occurred in the past syncing to a more local time server usually fixed the problem?

No malware was detected on any of these systems, 2 of the 4 had file system index issues (which is not surprising and has never been an issue before?) the other 2 did not have file system errors nor sfc results.
All computers had their bios batteries changed in a hope of fixing the issues but unable to repair?
All experienced the same "An unspecified error has occurred. Your request cannot be processed at this time. Please try again later."
No amount of fixes, or repairs mentioned on the web was able to repair the issues, Windows Repair install would instantly fail, system restore was borked and restoring the registry did not complete.
This seemed to occur since the previous version of Windows Repair, but not in version 2.10.2 which I have chosen to stick to from here on until a resolution.

I hope the information I have provided will help solve the issues.

Thanks,

James

Jarmezrocks · « **Reply #1 on:** February 13, 2015, 06:43:58 am »

I would like to further extend my gratitude for all your years of support.

My donation 28L821140U9422002

Thanks again

Shane · « **Reply #2 on:** February 13, 2015, 07:13:22 am »

That is very odd. None of the repairs target W32Time, the only repairs that would touch it would be the registry permissions, service permissions and set services to default startup.

So I wonder if the problem is the W32Time service, but perhaps something with the DNS.

Are you able to ping the servers? I want to see if it is able to get the correct IP for the server.

Here is a ping test from my machine you can use to compare.

Quote

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Shane>ping au.pool.ntp.org

Pinging au.pool.ntp.org [202.127.210.37] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 202.127.210.37: bytes=32 time=213ms TTL=49
Reply from 202.127.210.37: bytes=32 time=213ms TTL=49
Reply from 202.127.210.37: bytes=32 time=215ms TTL=49
Reply from 202.127.210.37: bytes=32 time=215ms TTL=49

Ping statistics for 202.127.210.37:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 213ms, Maximum = 215ms, Average = 214ms

C:\Users\Shane>

If it is a side effect from one of the repairs and is a bug I can fix it, if I can replicate it. I can fix almost anything that I can replicate because then I can keep won working on it. So I will load up a fresh windows 7 in vmware, all windows updates and run all the repairs. Nothing else will be on the system except windows 7 with all updates. Thats how I test the repairs

I will see how that goes and let you know if the time server gives me any trouble.

Shane

Shane · « **Reply #3 on:** February 13, 2015, 08:45:42 am »

Confirmed and replicated

After the install i first tested that the time sync worked and it did, i then ran all repairs and rebooted. Got the same error as you. I then only restored the registry and time sync works again. So I know it is in the registry. I am doing 1 repair at a time to trace it down

Shane

Shane · « **Reply #4 on:** February 13, 2015, 09:43:34 am »

OK I have made progress but still havent found exactly where the problem is at.

I have traced it to the UAC after the permissions have been done. On the test system, UAC enabled, I can open a cm.exe window as administrator and run the command
w32tm /resync

And the time syncs just fine. BUT if you try to sync from the task bar you will get the error. So the time service does work. So if I disable the UAC and reboot then the time sync from the task bar works fine. but as long as the UAC is on it wont allow it permission.

Some time sync does work, just not from the gui, so the system will still auto sync itself. I am still trying to trace done what registry key the UAC is being crappy about.

Shane

Shane · « **Reply #5 on:** February 13, 2015, 10:16:40 am »

And found!

One registry key only, the W32Time service registry key. BUT the keys themselves are fine. This is a bug in Windows that I just found. If the permissions are changed in anyway on that registry key then the UAC will not give the taskbar the permissions it needs. If the UAC is off it isnt a problem.

If I change the permissions back manually it will then work again.

So you can replicate this on any windows 7 machine. I have attached a screen shot of the default permissions.

Go ahead and change one of the permissions, give users full access, or add everyone to the permissions and you will see the UAC will nopt give the taskbar permissions, now, without even rebooting, put the permissions back to what they are like in the picture (By the way each time make sure you put a check on replace all child objects and hit apply) and once put back you will see the taskbar can sync again, without even a reboot.

So this seems to be an odd bug with the UAC, makes me wonder what else it has a bug like that with. So the fix will be for me to change the permissions repair to put the defaults on that key. I will do that in the next update

So remember, even if you have this happen you do not need to reinstall or do a system restore. Time sync still works when it runs on its own, it is only the taskbar clock that wont do it as long as the UAC is on, and we know how to fix that.

Shane