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Login screen displays clock in 12 hour format not 24 hour

T

Torquemada

macrumors member
Original poster
I have just upgraded (finally) to Tahoe, and noticed when I was logging in that the clock was in 12 hour format, and not 24 hour. I have all the regional settings set as UK, and it's fine after logging in.

I have read somewhere that this is due to FileVault (it enabled that without even asking me, I didn't have it enabled before) and not being able to read in the user settings.

I know the machine is not on the login screen for long, and it's not the end of the world, but I would like to see the time in the right format.

Does anyone know there is a way of fixing this?
 
Yes - I use 24 hour time and it is a bit annoying that the login time is never in this format - but as you say it is only in this format until you login, so I put up with it!
 
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I just restarted - I am in Australia and on 26.6.1 and the login screen is not in 24 hour format - it is 1851 hours here. However, once the login process is complete the system displays 24 hour time.

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Try this from Terminal and reboot:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleICUForce24HourTime -bool YES

With FileVault on, loginwindow can't read your user prefs until you unlock, so it falls back to the system-level global prefs (which default to 12h). Writing that key to /Library/Preferences (not ~/Library) puts the 24h flag somewhere loginwindow can see pre-unlock. Cleared the same annoyance on my Mac Studio after a similar hunt.
 
@benholt - thanks for that. I copied the above command to Terminal, executed it and rebooted. However, the login screen still shows the time in 12 hour format (FileVault is on). Any thoughts?
 
benholt said:
Try this from Terminal and reboot:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleICUForce24HourTime -bool YES

With FileVault on, loginwindow can't read your user prefs until you unlock, so it falls back to the system-level global prefs (which default to 12h). Writing that key to /Library/Preferences (not ~/Library) puts the 24h flag somewhere loginwindow can see pre-unlock. Cleared the same annoyance on my Mac Studio after a similar hunt.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I will also try it.
 
benholt said:
Try this from Terminal and reboot:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleICUForce24HourTime -bool YES

With FileVault on, loginwindow can't read your user prefs until you unlock, so it falls back to the system-level global prefs (which default to 12h). Writing that key to /Library/Preferences (not ~/Library) puts the 24h flag somewhere loginwindow can see pre-unlock. Cleared the same annoyance on my Mac Studio after a similar hunt.
Click to expand...
I suppose that’s why my MacBook Pro always shows the login prompt in German because this machine came from Germany and the German keyboard is enabled.
Unfortunately it doesn‘t explain why the log out window is in German as well.
 
@bogdanw - I read your linked post and Force24HourTime is set to '1' (see below) but it still doesn't work. Any suggestions?

% defaults read /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist


{AppleICUForce24HourTime = 1;


AppleLanguages = ( "en-AU" );


AppleLocale = "en_AU";


AppleTextDirection = 0;


Country = AU;


"com.apple.AppleModemSettingTool.LastCountryCode" = AU;


"com.apple.ColorSync.Devices" = "/Library/Caches/ColorSync/com.apple.colorsync.devices";


}
 
@njvm - the en_AU locale is the wrinkle. Australian English's default clock format in ICU is 12h, so setting AppleICUForce24HourTime alone gets read but loginwindow then hands it to the AU locale formatter which happily produces "6:52 PM" anyway. Two things worth trying together:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleLocale -string "en_AU@hours=h23"
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleICUDateTimePatternOverrides -dict "H" "HH:mm"

The @hours=h23 tag is what actually forces 24-hour on modern ICU regardless of locale defaults. Reboot after both. If it still shows 12h, `sudo killall -HUP loginwindow` from a Terminal.app session as admin is enough to make it re-read without a full restart to test faster.

Torquemada if you're also UK-locale, try the same with en_GB@hours=h23 substituted in.
 
benholt said:
@njvm - the en_AU locale is the wrinkle. Australian English's default clock format in ICU is 12h, so setting AppleICUForce24HourTime alone gets read but loginwindow then hands it to the AU locale formatter which happily produces "6:52 PM" anyway. Two things worth trying together:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleLocale -string "en_AU@hours=h23"
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences AppleICUDateTimePatternOverrides -dict "H" "HH:mm"

The @hours=h23 tag is what actually forces 24-hour on modern ICU regardless of locale defaults. Reboot after both. If it still shows 12h, `sudo killall -HUP loginwindow` from a Terminal.app session as admin is enough to make it re-read without a full restart to test faster.

Torquemada if you're also UK-locale, try the same with en_GB@hours=h23 substituted in.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I'll give that a go.
 
@benholt - thanks for your suggestions. I entered both Terminal commands and rebooted after each. Given it was the morning here - I turned off auto time update and changed the time to the afternoon. When I rebooted it still showed the time in 12 hour format, however when I entered 'sudo killall -HUP loginwindow', when the login screen re-appeared it was in 24-hour format although, when I rebooted the login screen was back to the 12-hour format!

Maybe it is time to give up thoughts of having the time in 24-hour format on the login screen, unless you have any more suggestions?
 
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