Bug#952380: gnome-control-center datetime kills system ntp service

[Robert Lange]

Package: gnome-control-center
Version: 1:3.30.3-2~deb10u1
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

After upgrading from stretch to buster, I was checking out the new Gnome
Settings. I noticed that the `gnome-control-center datetime` panel seemed to
indicate that Automatic Date and Time was not on, when I knew that it was in my
stretch installation. I opened a terminal and did a `systemctl status
ntp.service` and saw that ntp was enabled and running.

Curious, I clicked the off/on widget in the datetime control panel to see if it
would sync with the system. It flipped to on briefly, then back to off. I then
re-ran `systemctl status ntp.service` and found that the ntp service had been
killed. To be clear, ntp.service remained enabled, but the process had exited.

Subsequent attempts to enable ntp via the gnome control panel all met with the
same result: the switch flips on and then back off, and ntp is not restarted. I
had to manually run `sudo systemctl start ntp.service` to restart it.

While I've now made a mental note to ignore this control panel switch, and I
know enough about the system to know how to make it work from the command line,
I'd be concerned that non-technical users don't, and might just end up wrecking
their ntp service toggling this broken switch. I'd hope it can be fixed so
that, if ntp.service is enabled and running, the switch shows in the on
position, and if it's not enabled and running, the switch should set it so.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 10.3
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-8-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE, TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages gnome-control-center depends on:
ii  accountsservice            0.6.45-2
ii  apg                        2.2.3.dfsg.1-5
ii  colord                     1.4.3-4
ii  desktop-base               10.0.2
ii  desktop-file-utils         0.23-4
ii  gnome-control-center-data  1:3.30.3-2~deb10u1
ii  gnome-desktop3-data        3.30.2.1-2
ii  gnome-settings-daemon      3.30.2-3
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas  3.28.1-1
ii  libaccountsservice0        0.6.45-2
ii  libatk1.0-0                2.30.0-2
ii  libc6                      2.28-10
ii  libcairo-gobject2          1.16.0-4
ii  libcairo2                  1.16.0-4
ii  libcanberra-gtk3-0         0.30-7
ii  libcanberra0               0.30-7
ii  libcheese-gtk25            3.31.90-1
ii  libcheese8                 3.31.90-1
ii  libclutter-1.0-0           1.26.2+dfsg-10
ii  libclutter-gtk-1.0-0       1.8.4-4
ii  libcolord-gtk1             0.1.26-2
ii  libcolord2                 1.4.3-4
ii  libcups2                   2.2.10-6+deb10u2
ii  libfontconfig1             2.13.1-2
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0         2.38.1+dfsg-1
ii  libglib2.0-0               2.58.3-2+deb10u2
ii  libgnome-bluetooth13       3.28.2-4~deb10u1
ii  libgnome-desktop-3-17      3.30.2.1-2
ii  libgoa-1.0-0b              3.30.1-2
ii  libgoa-backend-1.0-1       3.30.1-2
ii  libgrilo-0.3-0             0.3.7-1
ii  libgtk-3-0                 3.24.5-1
ii  libgtop-2.0-11             2.38.0-4
ii  libgudev-1.0-0             232-2
ii  libibus-1.0-5              1.5.19-4+deb10u1
ii  libkrb5-3                  1.17-3
ii  libmm-glib0                1.10.0-1
ii  libnm0                     1.14.6-2+deb10u1
ii  libnma0                    1.8.20-1.1
ii  libpango-1.0-0             1.42.4-7~deb10u1
ii  libpangocairo-1.0-0        1.42.4-7~deb10u1
ii  libpolkit-gobject-1-0      0.105-25
ii  libpulse-mainloop-glib0    12.2-4+deb10u1
ii  libpulse0                  12.2-4+deb10u1
ii  libpwquality1              1.4.0-3
ii  libsecret-1-0              0.18.7-1
ii  libsmbclient               2:4.9.5+dfsg-5+deb10u1
ii  libsoup2.4-1               2.64.2-2
ii  libupower-glib3            0.99.10-1
ii  libwacom2                  0.32-1
ii  libwayland-server0         1.16.0-1
ii  libx11-6                   2:1.6.7-1
ii  libxi6                     2:1.7.9-1
ii  libxml2                    2.9.4+dfsg1-7+b3

Versions of packages gnome-control-center recommends:
ii  cracklib-runtime              2.9.6-2
ii  cups-pk-helper                0.2.6-1+b1
ii  gkbd-capplet                  3.26.1-1
ii  gnome-online-accounts         3.30.1-2
ii  gnome-user-docs               3.30.2-1
ii  gnome-user-share              3.28.0-2
ii  iso-codes                     4.2-1
ii  libcanberra-pulse             0.30-7
ii  libnss-myhostname             241-7~deb10u3
ii  mousetweaks                   3.12.0-5
ii  network-manager-gnome         1.8.20-1.1
ii  policykit-1                   0.105-25
ii  pulseaudio-module-bluetooth   12.2-4+deb10u1
ii  realmd                        0.16.3-2
ii  rygel                         0.36.2-4
ii  rygel-tracker                 0.36.2-4
ii  system-config-printer-common  1.5.11-4

Versions of packages gnome-control-center suggests:
ii  gnome-packagekit         3.30.0-1
ii  gnome-software           3.30.6-5
ii  gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio  1.14.4-1
ii  libcanberra-gtk-module   0.30-7
ii  libcanberra-gtk3-module  0.30-7
ii  x11-xserver-utils        7.7+8

-- no debconf information