Time cannot be set manually in mate-time-admin if ntp sync is unavailable (or disabled)

[mesov]

Expected behaviour

If no ntp sync daemon is installed, or if ntp sync is disabled, system time can be set manually by clicking on the "+" and "-" buttons and date can be set manually by clicking on the calendar.

Actual behaviour

If no ntp sync daemon is installed, or if ntp sync is disabled, the "Time" and "Date" fields are greyed, and the buttons to set time are disabled.

• if no ntp sync daemon is detected, switching the NTP sync button back and forth has not effect, time and date cannot be set manually through the Time and Date Manager UI,

• if a sync daemon is installed but disabled, switching it on and off makes it possible to use the "+" and "-" buttons to set time manually, or to click on the calendar to change the date, until the Time and Date Manager is closed. After it has been closed and opened again, ntp sync needs to be switched on and off again in order to be able to set time/date manually.

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

Start Time and Date Manager. If no time sync daemon is available, notice that the "Time" and "Date" fields are greyed. If a time sync daemon is installed and enabled, switch it off, close the Time and Date Manager UI, open it again, and notice that the "Time" and "Date" fields are greyed.

MATE general version

MATE 1.26

Package version

mate-control-center 1.26.1.1

Linux Distribution

Ubuntu MATE 23.10 Mantic

Link to bugreport of your Distribution (requirement)

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/2061691

[mesov]

systemd-timesyncd is the ntp sync daemon installed on this system. It is enabled by default, and works fine.

[mesov]

Note that the time zone can be changed by clicking on the "Edit" button:

[zhuyaliang]

Thank you for your report

[Ark74]

Moving comment to the issue itself:
Hello and thank you for taking a look into the issue #750

I'm testing this change on mate-control-center-1.26.0-2ubuntu3 (jammy) on Trisquel which comes without systemd-timesyncd enabled by default and I see no actual change from the original behaviour.

ubuntu noble ships 1.26.1-1.1build3, I'll try setup an environment that would match the one reported and see if something changes.

Regards.

[Ark74]

I did test on Noble,

Steps to test

• Install Ubuntu Mate - Noble (24.04)
• Remove systemd-timesync
• Reboot
• Not possible to set time.

Apply fix commit

• Get source apt source mate-control-center
• apply patch 8fd4dd2, update version at changelog
• then rebuild (dpkg-buildpackage) and update binaries.
• Result: clean output in terminal, still not possible to modify the time.

End of testing.

[zhuyaliang]

Thank you for your testing. I will continue to modify and update the code

[Ark74]

Hello again @zhuyaliang is there any news on this front?

[lukefromdc]

On my rather modified Debian Unstable systems which have never had systemd-timesyncd installed, I get rather different behavior. Setting the time works fine, presumably date as well but didn't check that. If you try to turn the NTP slider on, an error dialog pops up as one would expect,showing "No NTPS support, NTP not supported". Some of the time the app will then become unresponsive but not every time.

This slider should be greyed out anytime NTP support is either not present or disabled. I did not however get the greyed out time setting buttons