Anway to remove the NTP server timeout errors

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1

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Expected Behaviour:

im running on a pi5 and i want to know if there is anyway to silence the NTP server errors that i get atleast once a day. since the pi5 already uses its own built in NTP server i have diabled some of the options. did i miss something? anything i can do to silene these and not loose my time syncing?

pi-hole@pi-hole:~ $ timedatectl status
Local time: Sat 2026-02-28 20:37:24 CST
Universal time: Sun 2026-03-01 02:37:24 UTC
RTC time: Sun 2026-03-01 02:37:24
Time zone: America/Chicago (CST, -0600)
System clock synchronized: yes
NTP service: active
RTC in local TZ: no
pi-hole@pi-hole:~ $

image
image1304Ă—764 51 KB

Replace this text with what you think should be happening. Please include as much detail relevant to your system/install as possible including, but not limited to:

  • Operating System (Family and Version)
  • Hardware
  • Docker compose file or Docker run command
  • Docker engine version

Actual Behaviour:

random NTP server errors:

image
image1206Ă—656 30.4 KB

Debug Token:

https://tricorder.pi-hole.net/vFgwmcJ5/

pihole -d

2

You enabled ntp.sync.active and added a NTP server, but the server you chose is not responding.

You can try to change the server to a different one.

If this doesn't work, you can simply disable ntp.sync.active, since your OS already uses its own built in NTP server.

3

Hi there,

I encountered the similar issue on my Raspberry Pi running Pi-hole v6.

The root cause is that Pi-hole v6 now includes an internal NTP client. If you are using a local recursive DNS like Unbound (127.0.0.1#5335), the DNSSEC
validation can sometimes take more than a second, which triggers a timeout in Pi-hole's NTP client, resulting in that “Cannot resolve NTP server address”
error in your FTL.log.

Since Raspberry Pi OS already uses systemd-timesyncd to keep the system clock accurate, Pi-hole's internal sync is redundant and can be safely disabled.

Here is how I resolved it:

  1. Backup your configuration:
    sudo cp /etc/pihole/pihole.toml /etc/pihole/pihole.toml.bak

  2. Disable the internal NTP client:
    Edit /etc/pihole/pihole.toml and find the [ntp] section. Set the sync to false:
    ntp.sync.active = false

  3. Apply the changes:
    sudo systemctl restart pihole-FTL

After doing this, the errors disappeared from my logs, and the system time remains perfectly synced by the OS. Hope this helps!

2 Likes
4

@H0wMuch,

I see a [ntp.ipv4], a [ntp.ipv6], a [ntp.sync], a [ntp.sync.rtc] - but no [ntp] section. Also no setting called “ntp.sync.active”. there is the following:

[ntp.sync]

  active = true

Is this what you were referring to?

5

Hint, use Bash completion (double TAB) instead of searching through that .toml file and possibly make a mistake!
Eg:

$ sudo pihole-FTL
arp-scan           idn2               sha256sum
branch             --list-dhcp4       sqlite3
--config           --list-dhcp6       sqlite3_rsync
debug              --lua              tag
--default-gateway  lua                --teleporter
dhcp-discover      --luac             test
dnsmasq-test       luac               --tls-ciphers
-f                 no-daemon          --totp
--gen-x509         ntp                --v
gravity            --perf             -v
gzip               ptr                verify
-h                 --read-x509        version
--help             --read-x509-key    -vv
help               regex-test

$ sudo pihole-FTL --config
[..]
misc.readOnly
ntp.ipv4.active
ntp.ipv4.address
ntp.ipv6.active
ntp.ipv6.address
ntp.sync.active
ntp.sync.count
ntp.sync.interval
ntp.sync.rtc.device
ntp.sync.rtc.set
ntp.sync.rtc.utc
ntp.sync.server

$ sudo pihole-FTL --config ntp.sync.active
false  true
1 Like
6

Yes.