System setting date&time: Network time always disabled

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1

When I go to the system settings, and I activate “Network Time”, it’s instantly disabled when I close the settings menu.

But systemctl status ntpd shows:

     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/ntpd.service; disabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2025-07-14 20:18:48 CEST; 11s ago
 Invocation: f11b0f8ca970451598e06735109d2e5e
    Process: 1833547 ExecStart=/usr/bin/ntpd -g -u ntp:ntp (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 1833549 (ntpd)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 18913)
     Memory: 2.2M (peak: 3.1M)
        CPU: 17ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/ntpd.service
             └─1833549 /usr/bin/ntpd -g -u ntp:ntp

while timedatectl shows:

           Universal time: Mon 2025-07-14 18:19:12 UTC
                 RTC time: Mon 2025-07-14 18:19:40
                Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam (CEST, +0200)
System clock synchronized: no
              NTP service: inactive
          RTC in local TZ: no
2

systemd-timesyncd - Enable and start - ArchWiki

To enable and start it, simply run:

sudo timedatectl set-ntp true

Alternatively (e.g. when running in chroot), start/enable systemd-timesyncd.service.

systemctl enable --now systemd-timesyncd.service

systemd-timesyncd.service(8) — Arch manual pages

3

timedatectl now gives the right output:

           Universal time: Mon 2025-07-14 19:00:46 UTC
                 RTC time: Mon 2025-07-14 19:00:46
                Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam (CEST, +0200)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

That did the trick. Thank you!

But the setting in the System Settings GUI still doesn’t activate. Does that matter, since the system clock is now reported synchronized? It may work after relogging perhaps, or restarting my computer.

4

To check service is enabled and active and can contact NTP server to synchronize system clock

systemctl status systemd-timesyncd.service