I flashed v2.1.7 again just to see if I had a corrupt file in that portion of the code or something and the behavior was the same. Upon initial startup it seemed to reboot multiple times at the NTP Sync portion before settling in. Unsure if this is related but given this is the point of contention I would guess it is.
I then flashed the previous version which was v2.1.6 and it behaved the same as v2.1.7 as it pertains to the booting sequence and then randomly shuffling the date/time no matter what I do.
I then flashed v2.0.4 (downloaded from the same link as the above two firmware versions which was taken directly from the link you supplied previously) which is the firmware I was previously on. It seems as though it’s maintaining the proper date/time it pulls via NTP sync. I went into the GUI to assign the proper location and time (default is Boston and EST, I’m in MST in Colorado) and it also appears to be holding the proper date and time without issue. I was able to successfully change the port to the one I had previously and the one that doesn’t conflict with any other clients on my network. I can now access it via the app and everything seems to work properly exactly as it had previous to me attempting to upgrade to the latest firmware version. Plenty of time has passed and my date/time is rock solid and hasn’t shift to the 70’s or 80’s.
During my internet searches trying to find answers over the last couple of weeks I read that two different version of RTC were used and due to that it was important to use the proper firmware version that accounted for this. Could this have anything to do with the problem I’m experiencing?