That almost sounds like some kind of dns issue. Almost as if
libnswitch wasn't timing out and falling to the next lookup type.  What
does your nsswitch.conf look like?  What happens if you put files ahead of
dns for hosts?  Does ntpd then start?  Ntpdate does a gob of host lookups
when it starts, even if you specify only one host on the command line,
because if it can't resolve that, it tries a bunch of poolx.ntp.org host
lookups.

-Brian
On Oct 15,  7:47pm, "Steven M. Bellovin" wrote:
} Subject: Re: ntpdate hangs on 4.99.33
} On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:36:05 -0700 (PDT)
} Paul Goyette <paul@whooppee.com> wrote:
} 
} > This is interesting!
} > 
} > I had a similar problem with ntpd (NOT ntpdate) when I moved from
} > 4.99.29 to 4.99.31, but only when ntpd was invoked during startup;
} > it would successfully start up later on, but consistently hangs if I
} > executed it during normal startup.
} > 
} 
} I have such problems (i386) if I type anything in single user mode and
} then go multi-user...
} 
} 
} 
} 		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
>-- End of excerpt from "Steven M. Bellovin"