Is time.nist.gov still working?

Projects Programming
1

In May 2018, I built three digital clocks using ESP8266 boards. They have been working well until yesterday afternoon (March 9, 2019). The time on all three was stopped at 4:34 and didn't update. When I rebooted the clocks, the display remained blank on all three clocks. I am using the following function to retrieve the time: NTPtime NTPch("time.nist.gov"); Is there a problem with the server? My location is in the US, Central Time Zone.

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2

if I run

[color=purple]sudo sntp time.nist.gov[/color]

on my mac in Terminal, it tells me

2019-03-10 15:05:58.373108 (-0100) -0.006069 +/- 0.004631 time.nist.gov 132.163.96.6 s1 no-leap

so I guess it's still there and alive

3

wjburl:
Is there a problem with the server?

DNS failure (Is NIST still recovering from the government shutdown?)...
https://www.ultratools.com/tools/dnsLookupResult?domain=time.nist.gov

You really should be using the pool...
https://www.ntppool.org/en/

4

external DNS queries for NTP server probably would return multiple record and might actually be rejected to avoir DDOS attack... so not sure I'd trust the DNS lookup

Using NTP Server Test which is a NTP Server Online Tester for time.nist.gov does work

as they say This tool is useful to check if a given Network Time Protocol server is reachable over the internet using IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity

[color=blue] IPv4 test results
Result:[b][color=green]OK[/color][/b]
Server:132.163.97.3
Stratum:1
Offset:-0.001880
Delay:0.16110
IPv6 test results
Result:[b][color=green]OK[/color][/b]
Server:2610:20:6f97:97::6
Stratum:1
Offset:-0.000170
Delay:0.15796
[/color]

so the server is there and when polled with sntp does return the date..

But yes, clearly the pool is better

5

After I unplugged all three clocks, I waited until the next day and was in the process of setting up to troubleshoot the problem with my PC when I noticed the time was being displayed on the clock I was using. I plugged the other two clocks and they are working. I have each one set up to query the NTP server every 30 seconds. If they happened to get in sync, the NTP server might consider it to be a DDOS attack as J-M-L suggested. If that is the case, I'm glad I was permanently shut out.

A problem I have is that I'm a novice to the Arduino process and haven't used it since I built the clocks. Setting up to troubleshoot was like starting all over again. My 83 year old brain has problems remembering things.

Thanks for all the replies.

6

The time on all three was stopped at 4:34 and didn't update.

That sounds like an issue right there...

Your clocks should ‘flywheel’ when ntp is unavailable...
If ntp time sync isn’t responding - show some indication the time is not locked - but still running.

If need to poll ntp every second or more often - your clock code is dodgy, or you’re using the wrong type of hammer for the wrong nail.
Stopping the clock is fine, but better to blank the time completely.