VMware Tools 11.2.0 New Time Provider

[SCIJLW]

Running vSphere 6.7 U3l and upgraded our VMtools to 11.2.0 and started getting this filling our logs:

"The time provider 'vmwTimeProvider' logged the following error: A precision clock device was not found"

The Precision Clock device isn't even available in 6.7, and this is annoying to say the least.  The main thing is, can this message be ignored or is there some underlying issue with having the VMware Time Provider feature enabled on VMware Tools and not have it available or configured in the VM?

[vbondzio]

Why select the provider if you don't have a PTP device though? The requirement in https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tools/11.2.0/vmware-tools-user-guide.pdf states:

Configuring VMware Time Provider for Windows

A new time provider plugin vmwTimeProvider is provided for Microsoft Windows native time synchronization service 'W32Time' running inside vSphere VMs. The plugin interacts with precision clock virtual device to provide underlying ESXi host time, as an alternative to NTP and Active Directory based time sources.

Prerequisites

Ensure to add a precision clock virtual device to the VM before using the vmwTimeProvider plugin


Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your use case?

[SCIJLW]

The question is more around if the feature is installed but not used, outside of the log entries is there any detriment?  The recent upgrade of Tools added this feature without us knowing it until we saw the logs getting full of the aforementioned entries, and my question is more around do I have to touch all my servers and remove this feature or can we just ignore the log entries.

[vbondzio]

w32time will fall back to whatever is configured (e.g. NTP), so there is no impact besides the message. The log "spew" is odd though, it should only be logged once upon plugin load ... can you export your event logs (txt), zip it up and send it to me via email? myusername at vmware dot com

[Tibmeister]

Sorry, it's been kinda crazy fighting some fires.  I will try to get the logs, but it looks like each server is several times a day.

[bearhntr]

Why would this change?  If my VM Host is talking to my ROUTER (which is my NTP) for my entire home network - everything else is using this server/host (pfSense) to synch time - and VMWare ESXI 6.7 is installed (because in VMWare's infinite wisdom - my LSI 9260-8i RAID controller is not supported in ESXi 7.x)  

  I have setup the VM Host to point to the IP Address of my pfSense router (NTP is enabled there) --- but I am getting these messages in my brand new installation of MS Server 2019 (which is to be a new Domain Controller -- TIME Accuracy is needed):

The time provider 'vmwTimeProvider' failed to start due to the following error: The device is unreachable. (0x80070141)

VMWare Tools is the first thing that I installed on the server when I built it.  

How do i fix this?

[Ashrith_Dasyam]

What is the VM hardware version of the virtual machine?

If it is less than v17, plan to upgrade it to version v17.

Please refer - Add a Precision Clock Device to a Virtual Machine (vmware.com)

[WuGeDe]

I ran into the same problem. 😡
Suddenly that "feature" was introduced to me by VMware through the regular vmware tools update whithout letting us know and now I am constantly having that error messages in the Windows error logs on a daily basis.

microsoft-windows-time-service Event 4 System NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE"

the time provider 'vmwtimeprovider' logged the following error: a precision clock device was not found

"
Of course it was not found! I have not installed a precision clock device on my servers!

[vp4791]

Hi @WuGeDe,
I was also facing the same issue. I tried below option it worked for me.

Just download the VMTools iso from VMWare website, Run the vmtools.exe and select "Modify" and then remove the vmwtimeprovider plugin and click install, It will remove the plugin, After that we will not get the vmwtime provider failed event log in event viewer. please give a try and let me know if this works.