System time problems on Debian (wait for clock tick timed out)

Question

I just installed a new server and changed the time zone by using the command:

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

the system clock is correct now but /sbin/hwclock --systohc doesn't work:

select() to /dev/rtc to wait for clock tick timed out

date command, for example, date -s 14:30 works fine.

Any ideas how to fix it in an easy way?

Answer 1

It's a known bug with older versions of Debian. You can either upgrade or pass --directisa to every invocation of hwclock.