VMS 7.2-1 asking for the date and time at boot

[Alon Jacob]

Hello all.

I'm facing a problem as follow :
While re-booting a stand-alone server running OpenVMS v7.2-1 it asks for the date and time to be entered at the consule, and won't boot until that data is given.
Could this be a hardware problem (maybe the motherboard battery) or could it be something in the VMS?

Thank-you.

[Lokesh_2]

Hi,

AFAIK, its not a VMS problem. Most probably the bad battery.

Thanks & regards,
Lokesh Jain

[Martin Vorlaender · Accepted solution]

It's a hardware problem with the battery

*if*

SYSGEN parameter TIMEPROMPTWAIT is 0.

cu,
Martin

[Alon Jacob]

Hi all.

The sysgen paramter was set on 65535, can't tell why.
I reset it to 0, and used "write current" of-course.

We'll see again next reboot, which probably be in a few months.

Thank-you.

[Antoniov.]

Alan,
you have a battery trouble. After set TIMEPROMTWAIT you could meet some timestamp problem.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Henk Ouwersloot]

Alon,

Please check the system parameter SETTIME. If this parameter is set to 1, OpenVMS asks to set the time on each boot/reboot. The default value for this parameter is 0.

TIMEPROMPTWAIT should be set to 65535.

See also:
$mc sysman help sys_parameter settime
$mc sysman help sys_parameter TIMEPROMPTWAIT

Regards,
Henk

[Matt West]

Hi

I feel it may be the fact that SETTIME is configured to 1.

SETTIME is a boolean parameter which if set to on (1), will insist that the date/time be entered at reboot.
1. Check parameter $MC SYSGEN SHO SETTIME.
2. If set to 1 then set it to 0 in the usual way.

Matt

[Alon Jacob]

Hello Henk.

I took your good advice, and I found the settime parameter is set to 0.
I'll have to assume that the system's battery is dead, but I'll have to wait until the next time my clients will allow me to reboot, which could take a very long time.

Thanks all.

[John Gillings]

Alon,

One further possibility, your system may not have had the time set for a considerable period. OpenVMS timekeeping is complex, mostly because of the lack of availability of cheap clock chips back when the VAX-11 780 was designed. Since then, for various reasons we've had to live with the consequent limitations (bug for bug compatibility all the way).

When you issue a SET TIME command, the current time gets written to the system disk. On reboot, the time is read from both the hardware ("Time Of Year" or "TOY") clock and the disk. Some "sanity checks" are performed. If they pass OpenVMS calculates the time from both values. If not, OpenVMS will prompt for the date and time. (this is why a dead battery will also result in a prompt - the TOY clock starts at zero and is below the sanity threshold when sampled).

During a normal shutdown, the date should be written to the disk, but if the system only ever goes down by power failure or crash, this never happens.

You need to issue at least one SET TIME command between 1-JAN and APRIL the following year to put the "TOY" clock back into the sanity range.

If you're interested in exactly how OpenVMS maintains system time, there are plenty of articles which explain it in far too much detail. You really don't need or want to know, so finding one left as an exercise for the masochistic.

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hi John,

for the masochistic here :-), does the automatic change to/from DST with
AUTO_DLIGHT_SAV = 1 count as the required set time?

Greetings, Martin