Frequent invalidation of Mollom API keys

I've sent an email to my hosting provider and will get back to you on the server time when I hear from him.

To give you an example of the string of reports I get when the API keys revert to invalid, let's take today's incident. I'm attaching a screenshot showing a sample of the number of log messages. The first indication of a problem seems to appear when I get a red "x" mark with some CAPTCHA function. Normally, when API keys validate, I think this works out okay with no red x. So, here's the first message today that showed a red x for retrieving a CAPTCHA:

TYPE	mollom
DATE	Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - 22:09
USER	Anonymous (not verified)
LOCATION	http://fashionbelle.com/node/add/forum/1/
REFERRER	http://fashionbelle.com/node/add/forum/1/
MESSAGE	Retrieved new CAPTCHA
Error 401: Invalid authentication.

Request: POST http://rest.mollom.com/v1/captcha
  type = 'image'
  ssl = 0
Request headers:
  Accept = 'application/xml, application/json;q=0.8, */*;q=0.5'
  Content-Type = 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
  Authorization = 'OAuth oauth_consumer_key="31f7e1a1b384843df2e340f88ada861f", oauth_version="1.0", oauth_nonce="8bb9def9dd40540d2bb355e77d1ed795", oauth_timestamp="1340161821", oauth_signature_method="HMAC-SHA1", oauth_signature="mE3py3qRAykXz6mANgUqwUbI93A%3D"'
Retrieved new CAPTCHA

SEVERITY	error

Then, after about a dozen messages identical to that one, the error switched to "Invalid API keys," with a new message that looks like this:

TYPE	mollom
DATE	Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - 01:11
USER	admin
LOCATION	http://fashionbelle.com/admin/reports/status?render=overlay
REFERRER	http://fashionbelle.com/user/1
MESSAGE	Invalid API keys.
Error 401: Invalid authentication.

Request: POST http://rest.mollom.com/v1/site/31f7e1a1b384843df2e340f88ada861f
  platformName = 'Drupal'
  platformVersion = '7.14'
  clientName = 'Mollom'
  clientVersion = '7.x-2.1'
Request headers:
  Accept = 'application/xml, application/json;q=0.8, */*;q=0.5'
  Content-Type = 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
  Authorization = 'OAuth oauth_consumer_key="31f7e1a1b384843df2e340f88ada861f", oauth_version="1.0", oauth_nonce="db1771e47229692267839351e468edb7", oauth_timestamp="1340172695", oauth_signature_method="HMAC-SHA1", oauth_signature="A7Nvv3bQ5BwRIOEHlIkKOxt%2Ff%2BY%3D"'
Invalid API keys.

SEVERITY	error

Normally, I don't look at the log, I just busily delete all the extra spam while the API keys are out of service and wait eagerly until they start working again. It usually takes a day or two, and this has been happening around once a week since my upgrade to 7.x-2.0, and continuing on now with similar frequency for 7.x-2.1. I never had a single problem with this prior to 7.x-2.0, and it started within just a few minutes of that upgrade, making me wonder if it had something to do with that upgrade.

. . . To follow up, the keys reverted back to valid the following morning. The next Mollom messages after the above listed showed me logging in as admin on 6-20-2012 at 9:05, deleting spam comments, and then a log message saying "The API keys are valid." This is a typical sequence of events. I would not be surprised if the Mollom keys revert to invalid over the coming weekend, since this seems to happen with more frequency on Fridays and Saturdays. It could be the weekend or it could be the fact that this spring I have generally done most of my website work on the weekends and have been logged in more often then. I'm still waiting to hear back about the server clock and will let you know.

Thanks, sun. Here's a copy of my IRC conversation on #drupal-oklahoma about the server clock.

[10:03] kvanderw: Wondering if the server clock is synchronized with world clocks? "sun" at d.o says that might be creating problems I've had this spring with Mollom API key validation, too far an offset of time on the server clock.
[10:34] couturier: I can actually answer that question. Its not synced, unfortunately. We do monitor it and try not to let it get more than 1 minute +/- though
[10:36] drakythe: Wow, so that might be my problem after all. What to do? My Mollom API keys have been reverting to invalid about once a week this spring, flooding my site with spam. Sun says it might be my server clock causing the invalidation. Thanks for your answer.
[10:38] couturier: I know we looked at syncing it at one point, but that sorta fell by the wayside due to other priorities :( -- if it's causing mollom issues though, its something that definitely needs to be looked at, I'll bring it up to kvanderw.
[10:39] drakythe: Would appreciate your bringing it up. At this point, we can't figure out anything else that might have been causing the problem. I figured since you guys host so many Drupal sites, you would have noticed it on your others, too. It all started with my upgrade to Mollom 7.x-2.0 and has continued through 2.1, so I thought it was due to the upgrade, but sun says probably not.
[10:42] couturier: Haven't had any other sites report an issue to us, but still something we need to look into. Thanks for the heads up.
[10:43] drakythe: Thanks, I'll keep working with sun and if we figure out any other thing that might be causing it, I'll let you know. As I said, I think it has to do with the 7.x-2.0 upgrades and beyond, since it started immediately after that and I'd never had a problem before.
[10:43] couturier: Yeah, that would make it seem like an upgrade issue.

Thank you so much, sun. I've notified my hosts of this problem. This will be very helpful to have a more precise error message as to what was going on. Strange, though, that I would have had zero problems with this for over a year on Mollom, then within minutes of upgrading to 7.x-2.0 and beyond, I've had dozens of incidents.