Comment 2 for bug 238805

Perhaps it is a problem with adjtime() ?

also ntpdate also fails to synchronize the time if offset if less then 0.5 second - so when it uses adjtime()
but works fine for biggest drifts, when settimeofday() is used (according to man ntpdate)

perhaps ntpd tries to use adjtime() and thats why it doesnt work?

Notice how only >0.5 sec drifts are fixed and smaller remain unfixed by ntpdate also:

root@limcore:~# /etc/init.d/ntp stop ; while true ; do ntpdate pl.pool.ntp.org ; sleep 20 ; done
 * Stopping NTP server ntpd [ OK ]
10 Jun 11:59:55 ntpdate[6667]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.165079 sec
10 Jun 12:00:19 ntpdate[6669]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.205100 sec
10 Jun 12:00:44 ntpdate[6671]: adjust time server 83.19.137.3 offset 0.250410 sec
10 Jun 12:01:08 ntpdate[6674]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.298344 sec
10 Jun 12:01:33 ntpdate[6676]: adjust time server 83.19.137.3 offset 0.344156 sec
10 Jun 12:01:54 ntpdate[6681]: adjust time server 83.19.137.3 offset 0.389814 sec
10 Jun 12:02:14 ntpdate[6683]: adjust time server 83.19.137.3 offset 0.430025 sec
10 Jun 12:02:39 ntpdate[6685]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.471731 sec
10 Jun 12:03:04 ntpdate[6688]: step time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.518811 sec
10 Jun 12:03:25 ntpdate[6690]: adjust time server 83.19.137.3 offset 0.055616 sec
10 Jun 12:03:49 ntpdate[6693]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.097457 sec
10 Jun 12:04:14 ntpdate[6695]: adjust time server 83.19.137.3 offset 0.142246 sec
10 Jun 12:04:39 ntpdate[6697]: adjust time server 83.19.137.3 offset 0.190079 sec
10 Jun 12:05:03 ntpdate[6710]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.239657 sec
10 Jun 12:05:28 ntpdate[6713]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.286784 sec
10 Jun 12:05:52 ntpdate[6715]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.333004 sec
10 Jun 12:06:17 ntpdate[6717]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.379739 sec
10 Jun 12:06:47 ntpdate[6719]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.437479 sec
10 Jun 12:07:11 ntpdate[6725]: adjust time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.484347 sec
10 Jun 12:07:36 ntpdate[6727]: step time server 217.153.128.243 offset 0.531317 sec