New Reolink Wired POE Doorbell Cam ?

[TheWaterbug]

Does your camera by chance have internet access? Mine is isolated on my camera network. All other cameras are syncing with my NTP server, but this one. Searching around, it looks like this a fairly common problem with Reolink in general. The settings allow you input custom NTP server, but those settings are ignored.

Ok, this is weird. One of my ancient Reolink RLC-420 units doesn't appear to have an Other setting for NTP server:



and my DHCP server gives it a bogus gateway to keep it from getting out to the Internet:



But the other day I had some electrical work done, and I got to watch as it came back online with its default date/time, and then sync itself with something (?????) after a few seconds:

Electricians turned the power off at 11:15:59, then back on around 14:08. The camera comes up with its factory default date/time of 12/31/99, 16:00, and then syncs up with a time server at 14:08:34. I sped up the middle 30 seconds by 5x, but that was in post-processing, not from the camera. The odd thing is that this ancient camera doesn't have a setting to allow a local NTP server, so it's set to the default of time.windows.com, but it shouldn't be able to sync to that server, because I gave it a bogus default gateway of 192.168.1.254 (actual gateway on the LAN is 192.168.1.1, and there is nothing at 192.168.1.254), to keep it off the internet. I do have an NTP server running on my router at 192.168.1.1, but the camera shouldn't know that.

Back OT, my POE Reolink Doorbell (on my other network) does have an "other" setting:



so I can point it at my pfsense router's NTP:

 

[David L]

I'm running a dedicated BlueIris machine and all my cameras including the Reolink doorbell are on an isolated network. I'm running the built-in Windows Time Server on that same PC. I can ping the server fine, but for whatever reason that I have not figured out, this one won't sync. I'm running their latest firmware I believe (v3.0.0.3215_2401262241). I was on an older version, but upgraded when I noticed the time was not syncing. Are these things generally good with downgrading firmwares?

So in updating firmware from ReoLink's site I searched this:

How to Downgrade Firmware for Cameras or NVRs

If you upgraded the firmware of the camera/NVR to the latest one, but find you like the older firmware more, you can downgrad...

support.reolink.com

 

[RobertF14]

Perhaps this is already documented, but I can't get my doorbell camera to sycn with my local time server (all of my Dahua and Amcrest cameras seem to be syncing fine). Is this a known issue or is there a work around?

I'm running a dedicated BlueIris machine and all my cameras including the Reolink doorbell are on an isolated network. I'm running the built-in Windows Time Server on that same PC. I can ping the server fine, but for whatever reason that I have not figured out, this one won't sync. I'm running their latest firmware I believe (v3.0.0.3215_2401262241). I was on an older version, but upgraded when I noticed the time was not syncing. Are these things generally good with downgrading firmwares?

From what I remember when I had this issue, the Reolink software doesn't like either the stratum or drift sent by w32tm in it's default configuration. The following fixed it for me (substitute your preferred NTP servers as desired). The "0x8" flag tells w32tm to operate in client mode to that server instead of trying to peer with it.

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:"time.nist.gov,0x8 0.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8 1.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8 2.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8 3.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8" /syncfromflags:manual /update
w32tm /resync /rediscover

Then wait 15-30 minutes for everything to stabilize before attempting to have the camera sync with the server.

 

[David L]

OMG, Reolink and all their versions of Doorbells, haha, 8 downloads...when new firmwares come out...



My Collection:


BLACK (D340)


BLACK Wide Lens


White (340)


Narrow Narrow Lens


Did not find a firmware for the Battery Doorbell

 

[David L]

From what I remember when I had this issue, the Reolink software doesn't like either the stratum or drift sent by w32tm in it's default configuration. The following fixed it for me (substitute your preferred NTP servers as desired). The "0x8" flag tells w32tm to operate in client mode to that server instead of trying to peer with it.

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:"time.nist.gov,0x8 0.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8 1.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8 2.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8 3.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8" /syncfromflags:manual /update
w32tm /resync /rediscover

Then wait 15-30 minutes for everything to stabilize before attempting to have the camera sync with the server.

So do you have to do this on every reboot or just in a startup?

 

[RobertF14]

So do you have to do this on every reboot or just in a startup?

It's a one-time config change that's stored in the Registry.

 

[COtto1984]

From what I remember when I had this issue, the Reolink software doesn't like either the stratum or drift sent by w32tm in it's default configuration. The following fixed it for me (substitute your preferred NTP servers as desired). The "0x8" flag tells w32tm to operate in client mode to that server instead of trying to peer with it.

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:"time.nist.gov,0x8 0.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8 1.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8 2.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8 3.us.pool.ntp.org,0x8" /syncfromflags:manual /update
w32tm /resync /rediscover

Then wait 15-30 minutes for everything to stabilize before attempting to have the camera sync with the server.

Holy cow that did the trick!! Thanks! I assume this won't have negative consequences or other cameras?

 

[RobertF14]

Holy cow that did the trick!! Thanks! I assume this won't have negative consequences or other cameras?

It shouldn't. w32tm should maintain the clock more accurately now.