Event ID 141 — Time Service Advertisement

Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2

The Windows Time service (W32time) provides time source advertisements that clients can use to synchronize their clocks. The Windows Time service on a domain controller can be configured as either a reliable or an unreliable time source. The Windows Time service running on a client will attempt to synchronize its time source with servers that are indicated as reliable. The Windows Time service can configure a domain controller within its domain as a reliable time source, and it synchronizes itself periodically with this source.

Event Details

Resolve

Ensure that there is at least one time provider configured

To resolve this issue:

• Ensure there is at least one time provider configured on the computer that is generating Event 141, and restart the Windows Time service.
• If at least one time provider is configured, enable Windows Time logging and consult the log.
• If there is not at least one time provider configured, unregister and then register the Windows Time service.

To perform this procedure, you must have membership in the local Administrators group, or you must have been delegated the appropriate authority.

Ensure that one time provider is configured

To ensure that at least one time provider is configured:

1. Open a command prompt as an administrator. To open a command prompt as an administrator, click Start. In Start Search, type Command Prompt. At the top of the Start menu, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.
2. Restart the Windows Time service. Type net stop w32time & net start w32time, and then press ENTER.
3. Review the configuration of the Windows Time service. At the command prompt, type w32tm /query /configuration /verbose, and then press ENTER.
4. In the [Time Providers] section of the command output, ensure that there is at least one entry showing Enabled set to 1. If there is a time provider that is enabled, enable Windows Time service logging as described in the following section. If there is not a time provider enabled, unregister and then register the Windows Time service as described later in this document.

Enable Windows Time service logging

To enable Windows Time service logging and review the log file:

1. Open a command prompt as an administrator.
2. Create a folder to receive the Windows Time service log file. At the command prompt, type md c:\W32Time, and then press ENTER. The command creates a directory named W32Time on the C: drive.
3. To enable Windows Time service debug logging, at the command prompt, type w32tm /debug /enable /file:c:\W32Time\w32time.log /size:10000000 /entries:0-116, and then press ENTER.
4. Type w32tm /config /update, and then press ENTER.
5. Open the w32time.log file in Notepad. In the command prompt window, type start notepad c:\w32time\w32time.log.
6. Scroll to the end of the log to see if you can identify any errors that indicate that Windows Time service values from the registry are null. You can reset the Windows Time service values in the registry by unregistering and then registering the service.

Unregister and register the Windows Time Service

To unregister and register the W32time service:

1. To stop the Windows Time service, at the command prompt, running as an administrator, type net stop w32time, and then press ENTER.
2. To unregister the Windows Time service dynamic-link library (DLL), at the command prompt, type w32tm /unregister, and then press ENTER.
3. To register the Windows Time service DLL, at the command prompt, type w32time /register, and then press ENTER.
4. To start the Windows Time service, at the command prompt, type net start w32time, and then press ENTER.

To learn more about the Windows Time service and related tools, see Windows Time Service Tools and Settings (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=42984).

Post-troubleshooting cleanup

You can disable Windows Time debug logging by running the command W32tm /debug /disable. You can also remove the c:\w32time folder and w32time.log file when troubleshooting is complete.

To remove the folder and log file:

1. To remove the log file, you must first stop the Windows Time service. To stop the Windows Time service, at the command prompt, type net stop w32time, and then press ENTER.
2. To remove the c:\w32time folder, at the command prompt, type rd c:\w32time /s /q, and then press ENTER.
3. Start the Windows Time service again. To start the Windows Time service again, at the command prompt, type net start w32time, and then press ENTER.

Verify

When the Windows Time service is advertising time as a time source, Event ID 139, "The time service has started advertising as a time source," is logged in Event Viewer.

For more information about the Windows Time service, see the Windows Time Service Technical Reference (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=25393).

Related Management Information

Time Service Advertisement

Active Directory