How do I fix my time clock when the synchronize now button is not enabled? The clock jumped ahead 2 hours for daylight saving time instead of one hour.

You can adjust the time via a right click on the "Date and Time" display on the top panel and opening "Adjust Date & Time".
Click on "Unlock", enter your password and select "Keep synchronised with Internet servers". Select a Server for your country and check that your Time Zone is set correctly. Then close.

Andre, this almost solved my problem. It looked like it was going to work. Everything seemed just as you said, except that I could not find where to click on "Unlock" prior to entering my password. I got the screen that allowed me to select the time zone and also the server and I changed both, but the Synchronize Now button was not active. I could not figure out how to make it active. I closed the window, and checked again. The time clock has not adjusted, even though my new settings appear in the window when I open it up. I think it is all due to the inability to synchronize now. Can you help with that?

Just a few questions:

Which version of Ubuntu are you using?

Have you replaced or temporarily removed the battery on your motherboard?

Did you enable "ntp" (network time protocol) when you installed Ubuntu?

Sorry for the delay. To answer your questions, I am not sure which version of Ubuntu I have, but it is not the latest version. I am not sure how to update it. I have not replaced the battery on the motherboard, and actually, I wouldn't know how to do that. And I don't know the answer to the 3rd question since I was not the person who installed Ubuntu.

But, the good news is that I figured out how to fix the time clock, quite by accident, when I clicked on something and thought, why not go to the manual setting? In the manual setting, I was able to change the hour, and it has been fine ever since. So I am going to call this problem solved, but will leave the thread open for one more thing, below:

It is still a mystery as to why the time jumped 2 hours ahead instead of one hour for daylight saving time, which is what caused this problem in the first place. That's never happened before, and it raises a red flag. But for now I do not plan to pursue it, unless I find out from you or someone else on this message board that this is a sign of a more serious problem that must be fixed.

Thank you very much for your help.

There was a bug in Ubuntu at some point where the switch to and from daylight saving time did not work properly, so if you have an old version of Ubuntu, your system might still be affected by that bug.
Just don't forget to reset your time back in October, since you now switched to "manual" ;-)
Note that on manual, computer clocks tend to drift a bit over time so that the clock will no longer be 100% accurate (the drift can be up to a few minutes per year I guess).

Maybe I should switch back to automatic, at least for now. What I don't understand is why I had no trouble in previous years, with what I think is the same version. But upgrading might fix that, if I knew how to do it, and could be sure it would not cause other things to crash.

There is a way using "Manual Partitioning" but it would be best if you could get an external drive or blank dvd's or something to save you entire "/home" folder onto as that should have all your settings and data altogether. As your system was set up by someone else it's possible that they made a separate partition for your data but i don't know an easy way to describe how to find that out. Hopefully someone else will help with that.

Anyway it sounds like this needs to be posted as a new question
Thanks, good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Thanks. I'll start a new question.

Thanks Tom, that solved my question.

If you type this command into a terminal (Applications, Accessories, Terminal): mount
and then post all the output here, we can take a look whether your /home sits in a safe place.

Ooops, thanks for the karma points Wabbit but if you could re-open the question and award them to Andre that would be fairer. Lol, sorry its not really hugely important but Andre put the work in and i walked off with the prize ;) hehehehe

Hmmm, Crunchers info was pretty impressive too. Nicely remembered there :)

I don't know how to reopen the question. :(

Never mind.

Thanks Andre Mangan, that solved my question.

Brilliant, thanks :)

@Tom, Thank you.