Fortunately, the master clock came back to life after being unplugged and restarted -- but not without blurting out about fifteen minutes of the wrong time, before it acquired enough satellites to lock back up and rejoin reality. (We did find out what Chicago wanted to know years ago: no, nobody really knew what time it was, and yes, our station's general managers really cared.) Even then, the clock woke up thinking we had moved three time zones west, which didn't make the automation any happier and got the attention of our operators, who were afraid their shift was being digitally extended three hours. Finally we got things back on track and settled down, but the carnage on the air was epic.
We've used different automation systems for years and seen all kinds of failures, but this is the first time we've run across equipment that depends on time code, but is utterly incapable of free-running on an internal clock if the code goes away briefly. Can't begin to fathom why anyone specifying the hardware or designing the software thought this would be acceptable... but that's what we have to deal with.
So because time code has been shown to be so incredibly critical -- and by the way, some of the gear wants LTC while the rest expects it as VITC in the reference -- we quickly decided that we need a far more robust sync generator / master clock system, which we have ordered and are now eagerly awaiting. This is not a cheap piece of kit: it's roughly the same price as my car, and it comes with about as many amenities (but not heated seats).
I've already made up the 42 BNC cables (yes!) to go between the generators and the changeover switch, and I'm reading the manual so that the gear will get configured and tested as soon as the UPS driver wheels it through the door. And on page 3, the manual contains this gem:
"Unplug this apparatus during lightning storms or when unused for long periods of time."
Seriously? Has any station ever shut down its sync generators in anticipation of bad weather? What are these people smoking?

Jeff