Thread · HN Continuity

Human made summary: A telecom company had time synchronisation issues in a location of their infrastructure. They eventually used a single hardware GPS clock that fixed the issues but became their only authoritative clock in this location.

One day, the clock was turn off and on and it went 1024 weeks backwards because the time GPS time protocol sucks and use a week counter with too few bits.

Apparently a GPS clock can keep track of the time if it’s up and running when the week counter overflows, otherwise it has to take a wild guess. Apparently their hardware GPS clock used a hardcoded start time from its firmware instead of trusting a less reliable existing clock.

The article finishes with some AI looking suggestions to prevent such an issue to happen again.

Mine would be to have bought one or two more GPS clocks and not from the same provider.