CMS software NTP problem

[Darrener69]

Had cheap chinese cameras for a couple of years running with CMS 3.1.0.8 (Apr 17 2017)
Not the easiest software to use but has been ok for me for home security.
I have 4 fixed cameras and one PTZ (which looks at a local windfarm - I have a snapshot of one being hit by lightning. I'll upload that later)
The cameras used to keep good time but recently (last couple of weeks?) they seem to drift by up to 10 seconds/day
I have NTP enabled with pool.ntp.og, port 123.
(I haven't checked my router to see if port 123 is the correct port to use and if it is blocked. I'll do that as my next task)
Open to suggestions. I'm happy to pay for better software (in fact I bought another camera, a Comelit IPCAM172A, which won't work in CMS, but is found with ONVIF device manager)
I found "Perfect IP Camera Viewer" but open to other suggestions. What I don't want to do - for now - is spen money on different cameras.

 

[TonyR]

Consider this ==>> Setting up NetTime Time Sync Tool on Windows 10

 

[Darrener69]

Many thanks for the suggestion. There's lots of advice in that thread. I'll work through it.

I have 3 basic cameras and one ptz. The basic ones seem to lose about 10 seconds/day (but didn't until recently)
For other software I use that needs accurate time I use Meinberg see Meinberg NTP Software Downloads
and Installing NTP on Windows which maintains my PCs to within 1 second.

Windows (10Pro) firewall allows cms through. It is listed in inbound rules, but not outbound rules. I don't know if that's relevant.
I noticed the rule was set for TCP so changed that to UDP. I'll see if that makes any difference.
I've temporarily set the update time to 5 minutes, so I might be able to see if it has had any effect after a few hours.

 

[Darrener69]

Well that (changing TCP to UDP) doesn't seem to have made any difference :-(
I think I'll investigate other software.

 

[alastairstevenson]

The cameras used to keep good time but recently (last couple of weeks?) they seem to drift by up to 10 seconds/day

That may be significant that they were all fine and now are not, in a consistent way. A common cause to the problem that's not associated with the cameras, but with something that controls the cameras.
It's it possible that the CMS sets the camera time, independent of the camera NTP settings, and the CMS is off?
How does the CMS time compare with the cameras time?

 

[Darrener69]

Thanks. That's a good question. I never thought to investigate that.
I've just taken a screen shot and times shown by CMS / Cameras 1,2,3,4 are
14:46:45 / 14:46:44 , 14:46:43 , 14:46:44 , 14:46:46 so the biggest error is 2 seconds. That's fine.
The CMS time is within 1 second of my radio controlled clock (and the PC)
I'll take another snapshot later (maybe 24 hours to give it plenty of time to drift) and see if that has changed.

 

[Darrener69]

Solved!
CMS keeps good time.
After about 23 hours the error on cam03 increased about 7 seconds.
I now remember that some time ago I turned off "auto-reboot".
Turning that back on (I can set day/time) seems to make the cameras sync with CMS.
The downside is I lose about 1 minute of recording while it reboots, but if I select 3am or so hopefully I won't miss anything important.
But I'm still considering different software - Perfect IP Camera Viewer - as CMS struggles with some settings of the PTZ camera.