Panasonic KX-TG2000B cordless phone base station and other devices displaying wrong time from caller ID signal - unsolved

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Snamlets

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Oct 8, 2015
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My small business phone system is a Panasonic KX-TG2000B two line cordless phone base station with 8 handsets. From what I can tell on Amazon.com reviews, this sold new somewhere between 2001-2006. I acquired mine used when I opened my business in 2008, and now in 2019 it is still going strong.

However, a week ago my receptionist first noticed that it abruptly was displaying the time 30 minutes behind after years of accuracy. Always EXACTLY 30 minutes behind. Searching the internet, it appears this is not unique to this model or even the Panasonic manufacturer, but a feature of many cordless phones which apparently receive a time signal from the phone service provider as part of caller ID service. Multiple posters reported they would reset the correct time only to have it change to the wrong time as soon as the first incoming call was received. I was able to duplicate this behavior with my equipment. After the first incoming call is received the time resets 30 minutes in the past and stays that way. Cycling the power to the phone base or phone service provider cable telephone adapter modem off and on does not correct the problem. I called my phone service provider Spectrum to report this and ask if their caller ID time signal was faulty and they thought I was crazy. It struck me as odd that this began precisely a week ago, and is consistently 30 minutes behind, in a phone in its second decade of use, and I began to wonder if this was a firmware / ROM calculation algorithm bit overflow problem.

So I reset the base station DATE 4 years earlier to synchronize leap year calculations, and the next several incoming calls no longer reset the time 30 minutes behind.

10/15/2019 update - unfortunately, this behavior did not persist, and by mid-day after fielding dozens of calls, the time is back to 30 minutes delayed. Any solutions would be appreciated.
 
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Snamlets

Estimable
Oct 8, 2015
3
0
4,510
7/1/2020 Update: After deciding we would just live with the problem and ignoring it, as of this date, the problem went away on its own, causing me to suspect some changing format in the time coding in the signal received from the cable company that provides our phone service.
 
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