large clock skews cause numerous bootstrap UX issues
Setting the system clock several hours ahead or behind real time can cause many different bootstrapping problems. Often bootstrapping will get stuck with no obvious way to make progress, and no visible indication of what might actually be wrong. These seem to be lead to a disproportionate number of support requests.
Some examples are:
clock in past:
- stuck at 40% (Loading authority key certs) clock in future:
- stuck at 80% (Connecting to the Tor network)
- stuck at 85% (Finishing handshake with first hop)
More details and child tickets as I investigate further.