Pixel XL "losing time", clock gets behind, help

[OUGrad05]

My Pixel XL has been losing time for lack of a better term. My wife's Pixel (nonXL) is perfectly fine. As of right now I'm 34 minutes behind hers which has the correct time. This happens regularly and is highly annoying. I generally wear a watch but wasn't at the pool today and was using my phone. Now we're half an hour behind on our dinner plans.

Has anyone else experienced or know how to fix this problem?

 

[jleakey]

My Pixel XL has been losing time for lack of a better term. My wife's Pixel (nonXL) is perfectly fine. As of right now I'm 34 minutes behind hers which has the correct time. This happens regularly and is highly annoying. I generally wear a watch but wasn't at the pool today and was using my phone. Now we're half an hour behind on our dinner plans.

Has anyone else experienced or know how to fix this problem?

I'd check to make sure your time is set automatically from the carrier.

 

[OUGrad05]

It is set that way.

 

[jleakey]

It is set that way.

Wow no idea then.

 

[tpero]

I've seen this happen on laptops, and usually it means the battery is bad - but it's also usually linked to the battery not properly powering dormant functions while the laptop is off and it will get back to the right time within an hour of being powered back on / plugged in. Weird to see it happen on a phone.

 

[mclarryjr]

I've had time widgets not update and get behind a few times but never the time on the status bar. Were you checking the time on a widget?

 

[Philipmom]

I'm guessing try a factory reset and see if that solves it. if it doesn't you can at least tell your carrier that it didn't resolve it and they might send you a replacement.

 

[Trees]

A variation to the ideas suggested above is to set the time manually and see if it drifts compared to a known good time source. That would help determine if time can be accurately kept without getting time services from the carrier.

 

[N4Newbie]

I think you've got something running in the background that is consuming CPU cycles.

Does your phone feel even slightly warm?

If you force a reboot, does it show the correct time upon startup and then slowly drift away?

Is it always slow? Is it *ever* fast?

How is your battery life?

Lastly, have you enabled Developer Options and, if so, which ones are turned on?

 

[OUGrad05]

I've had time widgets not update and get behind a few times but never the time on the status bar. Were you checking the time on a widget?

Status bar

 

[OUGrad05]

I thought the same but battery life and looking at what's consuming battery doesn't show anything that odd, android system sometimes gets a little high. Upon reboot its fine for awhile. It's never fast. It'll keep perfect time and then it's almost as if randomly once a week it just stops keeping time for 30 or 45 minutes, its very odd.

I haven't enabled developer options, not sure how to do that but would be willing to take a look if necessary.

 

[N4Newbie]

I thought the same but battery life and looking at what's consuming battery doesn't show anything that odd, android system sometimes gets a little high. Upon reboot its fine for awhile. It's never fast. It'll keep perfect time and then it's almost as if randomly once a week it just stops keeping time for 30 or 45 minutes, its very odd.

I haven't enabled developer options, not sure how to do that but would be willing to take a look if necessary.

I mentioned Developer Options only because there is stuff in there that can have unforeseen consequences; sometimes people enable something there, forget they have done so, and the later why their phone is acting in unexpected ways. If you have never been there, then it doesn't apply in your case.

If you are curious and want to poke around, however, go to Settings -> About Phone and then tap on Build Number at least 7 times (I think it is 7; could be more) until you see "You are now a developer!" Now, take a look in Settings -> Developer Options.

 

[N4Newbie]

As to the other problem, there is a possibility that it is related to a specific cell tower. I would start by disabling network time: Settings -> Date & Time -> disable "Use network-provided time"

If the phone stops losing time, then I would seriously think it is a cell-tower related issue.

 

[Almeuit]

My Pixel XL has been losing time for lack of a better term. My wife's Pixel (nonXL) is perfectly fine. As of right now I'm 34 minutes behind hers which has the correct time. This happens regularly and is highly annoying. I generally wear a watch but wasn't at the pool today and was using my phone. Now we're half an hour behind on our dinner plans.

Has anyone else experienced or know how to fix this problem?

Is your wife on the same network? If it is set to use the network time it could be an issue going on with the tower.

 

[OUGrad05]

Thanks for the suggestions, if it was cell tower related then why wouldn't my wife's do the same thing? We're both on Verizon. Our phone settings are identical with regard to time/clock. Further, if it were a sync issue with the tower, making a call might resolve this since you'd have to ping the tower...in my case it made no difference.

 

[OUGrad05]

Ok a quick update, it did it again this morning on my bike ride, and I know at least one other time I noticed on or after a ride. I use GPS on all my rides and Bluetooth as well.

 

[davidnc]

When you say your times gets behind. Do you manually correct it ? By turning the automatic time settings off ? Then change the time ?
Does it gradually get behind a few minutes though out the day ?
Then turn the automatic date & time and/or automatic time zone back on ?

 

[OUGrad05]

When you say your times gets behind. Do you manually correct it ? By turning the automatic time settings off ? Then change the time ?
Does it gradually get behind a few minutes though out the day ?
Then turn the automatic date & time and/or automatic time zone back on ?

I have automatic time on. It's supposed to sync with the network. Fiddling with the settings doesn't fix the issue. The only fix is a reboot.

 

[N4Newbie]

If the time is self-adjusting in exact one-hour increments it is likely that you are connecting to a mis-configured cell tower.

These things can be very difficult to resolve as you need to identify the problematic tower and then get someone at the carrier's higher-level tech support who is willing to look into the issue for you. In the meantime, your best bet is to simply disable automatic time syncing.