[Solved] Unable to Link Devices when Booting Windows 10 from grub (UTC time mode issue?)

[DesertShadow]

There is no clear "How to" link identities without creating a new one. So I improvised after skimming some articles about linking devices.
My main issue with the docs stems from the fact that I don't want to create a duplicate identity and the the first step whenever I launch a fresh install of bittorrent sync is It asks me to create a duplicate identity. I don't see the docs even mentioning how to handle that step.

 

So on my new desktop I reluctantly created this duplicate identity *sigh* and then I went to Manual Connection and pasted a long code I got from my existing working laptop in the Link Device screen.

 

But it just hangs on the screen forever. It may be because I'm booting Windows 10 from Grub with a UTC time set from the linux bootmanager. I say it's UTC time because if I choose to sync with the internet time servers, it says it's 1am when it's like, actually still daylight hours here.

It's been hung on this screen for....  over 10 minutes. And I have extremely fast network speed (300mbs WAN internet) and SSDs all optimized for gigabit LAN, ALL on wired connections, no Wi-Fi.

[Helen]

Yes, this might be UTC time  - peers shall have same UTC time to be able to link. See this article for details. 

Other possible reasons are in this article. Well, and if neither helps, please send the debug logs from *both* peers, instruction is in this article (:

[DesertShadow]

Your guides are too simplistic and don't allow for complex dual or triple boot computer setups. I suggest you add a footnote to the Windows section. Following this guide I was able to use the Windows Registry to dupe Windows 10 into using UTC. However I had to use a QWORD because it's 64-bit. It even worked with Internet Sync on, for whatever magical reason. From there, BitTorrent Sync worked (I had to close and re-open it).

 

Quote

sing regedit, add a DWORD value with hexadecimal value 1 to the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation\RealTimeIsUniversal

Alternatively, create a *.reg file (on the desktop) with the following content and double-click it to import it into registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation]
     "RealTimeIsUniversal"=dword:00000001

If the above appears to have no effect, and a 64-bit variant of Windows is being used, using a QWORD value instead of a DWORD value may resolve the issue.

Should Windows ask to update the clock due to DST changes, let it. It will leave the clock in UTC as expected, only correcting the displayed time.

 

[Helen]

DesertShadow
Thank you for the instruction, it might be useful for others with a similar setup.

Our initial goal in the guide was to make a hint at the cause of the problem rather that giving specific instructions on how to configure time on complex setups, especially double/triple boot. We won't be able to cover all the setups in the guide.