NTP fails synchronization with server at startup

[Paul Smith]

On Dec 5, 2007 5:17 PM, Nigel Henry <cave.dnb at tiscali.fr> wrote:
> Another thing. Are you sure that ntp isn't doing it's stuff, even though the
> bootup shows a fail. Before you do the ntpd restart, run the following as
> user.
>
> /usr/sbin/ntpq
> then type pe, which will give you some info on which servers ntp is trying to
> connect to, and how successfull it is being. You can keep typing pe at
> intervals, which will show ntp's progress at reaching a point where a time
> server is being used as a "sys peer". The server being used will be prefixed
> by a "*". Other useable servers will be prefixed by a "+" "candidat". To quit
> ntpq type q.

Thanks, Nigel. In fact,
# /usr/sbin/ntpq
ntpq> pe
No association ID's returned
ntpq> pe
     remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  jitter
==============================================================================
 clock-a.develoo 192.12.19.20     2 u   28   64    3  190.143  438.261   9.311
ntpq>

i.e., when I run pe after a while, I get the above, but the first time
I run pe, I get

'No association ID's returned'

Can I be sure that ntp is running now and synchronizing with a ntp server?

Paul