Ethereum - Ropsten. Zero balance. How to synchronize correctly?

Question

Cryptocurrency

Raised a test network (Ropsten) by the test machine. Everything seems to be in sync. No more blocks are loaded. Writes only: "Imported new state entries". Only sometimes it loads when connected.
I also use the MetaMask client for testing. I imported the address into MetaMask and wanted to throw in a little ether. Threw. MetaMask is also displayed on https://ropsten.etherscan.io.
But on my test machine, the balance is 0!
I tried to import an existing account from MetaMask via a private key:
geth account import private key. But again the balance on the test machine is 0!
Tell me what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

a private key is needed for signatures, it is unlikely that it is needed for import,
but that's not even the point - the balance is in the ether network, and not on the machine