I'm having some trouble with stellarmate. It does, after some hiccups with the VPN connection, as very nice polar alignment, but from there on it refuses to plate solve or do a goto. I noticed that the date and time in ekos are wrong and I need to reset them all the time, but even then goto and playesolving don't work. Plate solving takes ages and then times out, both with the internal solver and ASTAP, and goto is way off and mostly ends with the scope pointing below the horizon. What am I missing or doing wrong here?

In Kstars make sure your geographic location is set correctly.

www.stellarmate.com/help/TimeLocation.html

raspberrytips.com/time-sync-raspberry-pi/