Home > News Tips

Why 'Your clock is ahead' on Mac & How to Fix?

Updated on Wednesday, April 24, 2024

iBoysoft author Amanda Wong

Written by

Amanda Wong
Professional tech editor

Approved by

Jessica Shee

English Deutsch

Your Clock Is Ahead? Here Are Solutions!

Fail to open the webpage in Google chrome and it pops up a window with the error message - "Your clock is ahead?", and it was accompanied with an explanation saying that A private connection to [web address] can't be established because your computer's date and time are incorrect. Reading this post, you will know why this clock error appears on Mac and the proven solutions to fix it.

your clock is ahead error on Mac

Why is there a clock error on Mac?

When there is a clock error on your Mac, it can make the browser unable to visit the web pages. Quite a lot of Mac users receive the "Your clock is ahead" notification on Google Chrome. And the culprit of this clock error on Mac could be multiple. Perhaps, Mac's date and time are wrong due to the incorrect date and time settings, wrong time zone, being disconnected to the internet, or being idle for a long time.

Besides, some Mac users report that even if Google Chrome says your clock is ahead but time is correct on Mac, then the problem lies in the browser or the sites. Expired certificates, unsafe pages, and accumulated cookies and caches on the browser could give rise to the clock error on Mac. Luckily, it is not a big deal, you can fix it easily with our solutions below. 

How to fix 'Your clock is ahead' on Mac?

No matter what the cause of your case, you can follow the steps below to troubleshoot the clock error on Mac. If the date and time settings go wrong, we will guide you on how to change time on MacBook to show the right date and time. If it is the browser and sites you are going to visit that give rise to the clock error, we will walk you through how to get rid of the "Your clock is ahead" error on Mac. 

Check the Date & Time settings

In the first place, you need to check whether the settings of the date and time are wrong on your Mac computer. Go ahead to the Apple menu > System Preferences > Date & Time. Here you can see the current date and time. If you find it is incorrect, check the box next to Set date and time automatically, and choose Apple(time.apple.com.), make sure your Mac has connected to the internet. Then, you need to check whether you have chosen the right time zone. 

check date and time settings on Mac

Check the Language & Region settings 

If the region you have set is inconsistent with the one you locate, then such a conflict will lead to the clock error on Mac. Hence, you need to check and Language & Region settings on Mac, and change them if necessary. Just navigate to the Apple logo > System Preferences > Language & Region. On the new window, you can see the region you have set for Mac, if it is wrong, click it and choose the correct region from the expanded menu.

check language and region settings on Mac

Manually set date and time

Mac still fails to show the right date and time? Perhaps, the Mac can not connect to the internet. Or, there is no available internet, then you can manually set the date and time on your Mac. On the Date & Time settings pane, uncheck the box of automatically set date and time as well as the time zone, then choose the right ones and click Save.

 Tips: NVRAM(Non-volatile random-access memory) stores some OS-related settings including the time zone if there is a clock error on Mac, then resetting NVRAM may help to fix the problem. 

Clear browser data on Mac

Unluckily, the error "Your clock is ahead" still remains after you apply the above solutions and the date and time on your computer are correct now. Then, it may be the accumulation of caches and cookies that results in the clock error on Mac. The heavily loaded browser could perform abnormally, such as Safari won't open. Therefore, you can clear caches on Mac, delete cookies, clear browsing history, then quit and reopen the browser to see whether the error has been removed.

manually set date and time on Mac

In case the page you are going to visit is unsafe and the browser doesn't load it, you can switch to another browser. And if the certificate of the site if expired, you can contact the web administrator to get the issue resolved.