topic Re: Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000r3 fails formatting USB Drives after firmware update to 1.12.2.1_27 in Arlo Pro

Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000r3 fails formatting USB Drives after firmware update to 1.12.2.1_2798

Retired_Member — Mon, 27 May 2019 02:49:05 GMT

Just noticed that apparently my Arlo Pro Base Station can no longer format USB Drives. I have been using these SanDisk 64GB drives for local storage for few months now and all was working just fine up till today when I tried to re-format.

Here is what happens:

Running Format takes unusually short time (less than 5 seconds) and after "completion" USB Device Status is shown as "Ready" and Available Storage is shown as "0 of 0"
Removing and re-inserting USB Drive into Base Stations reverts display of Available Storage numbers back to the values shown before the format was attempted.
Reading Drive on PC shows all files are still there and the drive in fact was not formatted at all.
Formatting USB Drive on Windows 10 PC to xFAT and trying to format that USB Drive in Arlo Base Station no longer converts File Sysytem to FAT32. USB Device Status remains "Requires Formatting" no matter how many formatting attempts have been made.

Based on these observations I'm reaching a conclusion that Base Station can no longer execute Format correctly. No changes have been made to my setup except for resent firmware update for Base Station to 1.12.2.1_2798

Could someone please try formatting USB Drive on VMB4000 to check if it still works for you?

ARLO PRO UNABLE TO FORMAT USB DRIVE

lewis76 — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 20:41:42 GMT

Arlo Base - FirmWare: 1.12.2.0_2794 HardWare Version: VMB4000r3 Previous USB crashed and in RAW format. (Recovered most items though timeframe was wrong due to previous firmware). Brand new: WD 2TB Black My Passport Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBS4B0020BBK-WESN Initially installed into Arlo, formatting failed to take. Removed and formatted in local machine and verified FAT32. Reinstalled into Arlo system. Arlo asks to format and won't accept new drive. Rebooted Arlo to see if that would help alleviate the situation. No change, system still will not accept usb hard drive.

Re: ARLO PRO UNABLE TO FORMAT USB DRIVE

lewis76 — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 17:02:16 GMT

Removed drive from Arlo and validated good drive:

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk e: /f
The type of the file system is FAT32.
Volume MY PASSPORT created 4/20/2019 10:25 AM
Volume Serial Number is 11FB-113A
Windows is verifying files and folders...
File and folder verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
1,953,002,848 KB total disk space.
64 KB in 2 hidden files.
32 KB in 1 files.
1,953,002,720 KB are available.

32,768 bytes in each allocation unit.
61,031,339 total allocation units on disk.
61,031,335 allocation units available on disk.

Tried to connect to the second usb slot on the Arlo as well with no success. Still continously asking to format drive.

Re: ARLO PRO UNABLE TO FORMAT USB DRIVE

lewis76 — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 17:33:39 GMT

Placed a Sandisk flashdrive into the system and it took immediately. Will attempt to format the WD hard drive once again.

Re: ARLO PRO UNABLE TO FORMAT USB DRIVE

TomMac — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 17:43:42 GMT

Some HD's just don't work.... I do recommend a 32/64 GB speed drive anyway as it does make it easy to remove/eject and place into another machine.

Re: ARLO PRO UNABLE TO FORMAT USB DRIVE

lewis76 — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 18:04:22 GMT

Called Arlo Support and did all the troubleshooting myself with the exception of support stating the base station supports 2.0 usb products only.

Disclaimer: The 2TB WD external is 3.0 and the Sandisk External is 2.0 so thats an easy answer at this time.

Though that's not a correct solution as the original hard drive I had connected was 3.0 as well.

Arlo Team: Please give your help desk more tools to be able to provide correct solutions.

Case Number: 40828112 - UNRESOLVED

Re: ARLO PRO UNABLE TO FORMAT USB DRIVE

lewis76 — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 18:07:25 GMT

Hey Tom,

Thats a very true statement though I wish they had a list of incompatiable (or compatiable) drives. Would make life a bit simplier!

Arlo baby monitor timeout

kollies085 — Sat, 25 May 2019 11:57:06 GMT

Help! I just moved my baby into his own room and the live feed timesout and the noise stops running in the background. I’ll wake up and it last shows active minutes even hours ago. He has a white noise machine in his room so i need to keep the monitor running so I can hear him when he starts to cry.

Re: Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000r3 fails formatting USB Drives after firmware update to 1.12.2.1_27

Talktotone — Mon, 27 May 2019 07:13:11 GMT

Hi, yes I've noticed the same. I've only just purchased my arlo pro and after trying to format via the base station this didn't work. Assumed it was a feature that was yet to be activated.

Re: Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000r3 fails formatting USB Drives after firmware update to 1.12.2.1_27

jguerdat — Mon, 27 May 2019 13:51:33 GMT

It could be an incompatibility of some sort - not sure why. Try formatting on a computer. Be sure to use FAT32, not exFAT. You may need to use a 3rd party utility to do so. It might also be worth formatting in a different format and then tyring to format when plugged into the base.

Dunno why this is happening, just throwing out some suggestions to get past this.

Re: Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000r3 fails formatting USB Drives after firmware update to 1.12.2.1_27

Retired_Member — Mon, 27 May 2019 15:23:52 GMT

Hi Talktotone,
Thank you for sharing your experience. This feature to format USB drives in Base Station for sure was working before the last firmware update. At least this is what it looks like until we, hopefully, get more replays to confirm that one way or another.

Re: Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000r3 fails formatting USB Drives after firmware update to 1.12.2.1_27

Retired_Member — Mon, 27 May 2019 15:55:13 GMT

Hi jguerdat,
Thank you for great suggestion. I ended up installing free version of AOMEI Partition Assistant and it allows to format large USB drives to FAT32 on Windows 10. USB Drive works normally in Arlo Base Station after that except for formatting.

Re: Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000r3 fails formatting USB Drives after firmware update to 1.12.2.1_27

Retired_Member — Mon, 27 May 2019 16:06:17 GMT

As a general update and further clarifications:

Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000 no longer formats USB Drives (in my case it's SanDisk 64GB SDCZ43-64G Cruzer Ultra Fit USB 3.0 Nano Flash Pen Drive 150MB/s)
Formatting this very same drive was working great up till last week. Timewise that corelates to Base Station firmware update to version 1.12.2.1_2798
Attempting to format FAT32 USB Drive does not erase existing files (does nothing)
Attempting to format exFAT USB Drive does not convert FS to FAT32 (does nothing)
The USB Drive is accepted by Arlo Base Station after being formatted to FAT32 on Windows 10 PC (via AOMEI Partition Assistant Utility). Attempting to re-format in Base Station still does nothing.
I have 5 of these VMB4000 Base Stations in my setup using 5 USB Drives of the same model. Apparently, all of them stopped formatting at the same time (Issue was discovered Yesterday)
I have opened ticket with Arlo Technical Support Team and will share the outcome once I hear back.

In the meantime, it would be very helpful to get some additional reports on this matter from people who are running Arlo Pro setups with local USB storage and were able to format that USB storage devices before in Base Stations. Thank you.

Re: Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000r3 fails formatting USB Drives after firmware update to 1.12.2.1_27

ArloUser52 — Tue, 28 May 2019 13:22:57 GMT

After the latest Arlo update version 2.7.9 the following things started happening:

When multiple recorded videos are present and I delete just one of the videos, all other recorded videos dissapear until you close and reopen the Arlo app and repeat again for each deleted video.

Also I cannot format my USB drive plugged into the back of the Arlo base station. Message says failed to format. Worked perfectly fine until this last update.

This same thing happened previously the last time an update came out.

Re: Arlo baby monitor timeout

KtTodd — Wed, 29 May 2019 01:24:10 GMT

Not much help but this happens with outs too. More so when im usning an apple product. We have a kindle and it works better with that. Kind of sucks

Re: ARLO PRO UNABLE TO FORMAT USB DRIVE

ArloUser52 — Wed, 29 May 2019 14:27:17 GMT

After the latest arlo app update 2.7.9 (4) days ago, I have been unable to format my USB drive.

It worked perfectly fine before this update and now I get a message stating:

1. Your USB device failed to format

Now I cannot save videos on my USB drive.

Also, when I go to view recorded videos, I am now getting an intermittent message stating:

1. There was an error obtaining your library - Arlo is working on the problem.

Also, after viewing a video and deleting it, all the videos dissapear from the library until I close Arlo app and reopen it, then they reappear.

The lastest Arlo update reads:

Version 2.7.9 - Bug fixes and stability improvements.

But my Arlo system went from running good, to causing unstability and bugs.

Re: ARLO PRO UNABLE TO FORMAT USB DRIVE

addeth — Wed, 29 May 2019 15:25:48 GMT

Same problem for me. Tried to format several USB 2.0 discs without any succes. Worked like a charm before update.

Re: Re:ftiffany post... Arlo Pro not recording on External Hard drive

96709 — Wed, 29 May 2019 18:41:48 GMT

Any update as far as a resolution? So the USB is clearly not a backup in cases when there is no Internet service? So its only purpose is to to backup beyond the rolling 7 days which are free? This doesnt sound like a proper security setup IMO.

Re: ARLO PRO UNABLE TO FORMAT USB DRIVE

jguerdat — Wed, 29 May 2019 18:43:26 GMT

I also have verified this. It's not limited to large drives - I tried a 2GB thumb drive. You can always use a computer to format the drive in FAT32 (not exFAT) but you may need to use a 3rd party application when formatting a large drive.

Re: Arlo Pro Base Station VMB4000r3 fails formatting USB Drives after firmware update to 1.12.2.1_27

96709 — Wed, 29 May 2019 18:51:03 GMT

You are not alone. I have 2 base stations. Tried a remote format of the USB drives attatched to both and they will not format. In the past, this was not an issue.