Fix for mac laptops not remembering date/time

Mac Love Comic

I shared earlier that my 2019 MacBook Pro Intel did not remember the date/time.

At first, all the troubleshooting that I did to solve it didn’t work. Then I called Apple and they suggested reformating the machine and setting it up as a brand-new Mac. I did that and the time/date still didn’t work. It has been that way for more than 2 months and I just accepted it. Apple said that for $750 I could send it in for repair, but for that money, I could buy a new M series Mac so it doesn’t make sense to repair it.

Mac Love Comic
mac love comic

Finally, a few days ago I thought if it isn’t reliable with the Mac OS I might as well install Linux on it and learn more about Linux. I tried installing a few popular distributions but unfortunately, the trackpad wouldn’t work so I couldn’t go through the setup procedure. I tried 3 different Linux versions and then the next day I noticed something that shocked me. The date and time were correct!

Since I didn’t install anything I can only state that rebooting the Mac into a different OS might have changed a PRAM setting that otherwise I wouldn’t have access to. I reset the PRAM earlier as part of my troubleshooting but it didn’t fix the issue. Oh, I also had to change the boot options on the Mac under security settings to allow it to boot from USB. Otherwise, it didn’t work with the USB boot for Linux. Still, I doubt that fixed the issue since it had nothing to do with the date/time.

I have been monitoring this for a few days and the date/time has stayed correct. Apple and I were convinced it was a hardware issue, and it still may be, but for the moment it is working.

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