The RTC itself & the battery is fine because it’s keeping time perfectly now on v2.0.4 just like it was prior to me ever trying to upgrade the firmware. Even though I re-downloaded the firmware you said was for OS v2.0 just to be sure I had the proper version it appears to be a firmware issue as opposed to a hardware issue since it works fine back on v2.0.4.
Something is up with the RTC portion of the firmware in v2.1.7 as well as v2.1.6 and possibly others since those are the only other two I tested. It could also have something to do with the question I asked earlier about if I need to open up port 123 on my router for the NTP sync. I don’t believe this is the issue though unless there was a change in how the NTP Sync occurs from v2.0.4 to v2.1.7.