How Is This Possible? Time issue...

[JustGretchen]

My inlaws are visiting and we noticed that in mail app all the dates on the emails are 11/24/11.

I looked at the time on the menu bar, and it was correct. They also have it set to display the day of the week. Both of these are correct. HOWEVER....

If you click on the time, it shows that it's 11/24/11 below. I'm unsure how to solve this.

I have reset SMC and PRAM, and the issue still happens. I am running 10.6.8 combo update again.

 

[sammich]

Have you tried deselecting the 'Set date and time automatically' and then reenabling it?

 

[GGJstudios]

Trash the /private/etc/localtime file, entering your admin password when prompted. To get to that folder in Finder, click Go > Go to Folder and type /etc

Then go to System Preferences > Date & Time and set your preferences.

 

[JustGretchen]

yes I have tried that uncheck and recheck.

Deleting that localtime file did not resolve the problem.

 

[GGJstudios]

yes I have tried that uncheck and recheck.

Deleting that localtime file did not resolve the problem.

Did you try restarting afterwards?

 

[JustGretchen]

even tried deleting the file that the local time file leads to, no change.

 

[GGJstudios]

even tried deleting the file that the local time file leads to, no change.

Did you restart your computer, as I asked?

 

[JustGretchen]

yes, Indeed I did. I tried logging out and restarting. Neither worked. Combo update didn't resolve either.

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It is also user specific. Works fine in test user.

 

[JustGretchen]

have been scouring various places to find a solution and can't. This is one of the most strange things I've seen, and the fact that it is local to one user is even more strange.

 

[JustGretchen]

I have now booted to safe boot, repaired permissions, booted to an external OS, verified the disk, checked for bad sectors/SMART verification with smartCTL, repaired the directory with disk warrior.

Issue persists. I'm about to erase the machine

 

[samh]

I have now booted to safe boot, repaired permissions, booted to an external OS, verified the disk, checked for bad sectors/SMART verification with smartCTL, repaired the directory with disk warrior.

Issue persists. I'm about to erase the machine

Why nuke the machine if it's user-specific?

1. If you disable "set date/time automatically" and set a new date and time, does it "stick" if you don't re-enable the option?

2. Have you tried a different time server?

 

[Makosuke]

I'm with samh; if it's just one user, wiping the machine is unlikely to be helpful. And if you use Migration Assistant to import users from backup after the reinstall, there's a good chance you'll just bring the problem back.

Question: How much stuff is there on the problem account: In an absolute worst-case scenario, you could just delete and re-create the account, which has a better chance of fixing the problem than a full OS reinstall.

An even less drastic experiment would be this: Log out of the problem user account, then use an admin user to go into their local Library folder and pull out the entire Preferences folder (~/Users/[badUser]/Library/Preferences/ that is). Now log in; a lot of stuff should be reset to default, which hopefully includes fixing the time issue. If it's fixed, at least you know it's a corrupt .plist in there; if not, you've at least narrowed it down. Either way you can log out and put the Preferences folder back and go from there.