Problem: Rebooted my Exchange 2010 server and when it came back up the information store wouldn’t mount. Looked in the application log and found the following error:
Unable to initialize the Information Store service because the clocks on the client and server are skewed. This may be caused by a time change either in the client or the server, and may require a reboot of that computer. Verify that your domain is properly configured and is currently online.
Solution:
Found some instructions on the technet website that fixed my problem.
- Open a cmd prompt from the Exchange Server as administrator (right mouse click on the command prompt shortcut and select Run as Administrator)
- Run this command Net time \\ADServerName /Set
- Restart the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology Service
*Important!! You have to restart the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology Service or this fix will not work.. I tried just starting the Information Store service after running the command it it still failed..
Further reference: Technet
Dude, you rule! Thanks!
your rock!! thanx alot.
Thanks, saved my ass
This happened just after I had update the time on my NTP server. First the send connectors between my Ex2k7 and Ex2k10 servers reported authentication errors which was resolved by restarting the servers but after that the information store on the Ex2k7 wouldn’t come up. Serves me right for not looking at the event logs sooner. Mad props!!!
excellent blog! thank you sooooo much
Saved the day! Thanks!
Man, thank you so much, two hours lost until I found this post.
Brilliant fix, thanks a million!
This, too, saved my ass.
Thanks for posting! Saved the day!
Thanks but this works until I reboot when I then have to run the command again. Any further idea’s?
merci
saved our day
just happened after RU7 was applied
Worked beautifully. Thanks a lot, quick and easy fix !!!
thank you very much. I could upload it from your explanation uploading Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology Service
worked but why if the times were not skewed did this happen?
Not sure why if the times weren’t skewed. Could be a number of things. Could be an active directory settings issue, network communications or a topology issue… http://www.mountainvistatech.com/2013/10/08/exchange-2010-topology-discovery-failed-error-0x8007077f-v-issue/
This has worked for us. Even though time was not skewed and w32tm /query /status showed that it was synchronizing from a valid source, the IS service would not start and errors would be logged complaining of the clock being skewed. After running the command above and restarting the AD Topology service we were finally able to bring the IS service back up.
Thanks a lot!!!
Glad it worked for you. That’s an interesting variation to my problem. Thanks for sharing.
This saved me as well, I don’t know why we keep having this same problem whenever the DC’s reboot (usually when we push an update), but I did write a simple batch file for the IS service to restart. In recovery I set it to run the following batch command:
Net time \\ADServerName /Set
net stop MSExchangeADTopology && net start MSExchangeADTopology
Seems to correct itself then.
THANKS Larry!
Thank you very much. Happened right after the reboot after Installation of Exchange 2010 SP3 Rollup 5. Time was exactly the same as on the PDC. Your solution solved it.
Glad it worked and thanks for the batch command. An nice addition to the solution as well.
Great! it worked for me too. thanks a lot.
Benzi 🙂
Add me to the list of “me too’s” that this fixed worked on. My time skew was all of 3 seconds after a reboot of Exchange 2010 :/
Superb. And thanks for pointing out the need to restart the topology service 🙂
Great! Glad I could help and thanks for visiting.
Mate, you are a lifesaver!
The fix had to be applied after each reboot. Checked and noticed the time was off on the VMware Host server. Once the time was fixed on the VMware host the problem went away.
Excellent! This should never happen but it did… I am very thankful it is fixed but any ideas on WHY? it happened? The Time change was 3 days ago… But the problem started today.. Very frustrating! Anyway I know the OP wrote this like 3 years ago but thank you!!!!