Camera keeps going offline

[Pam66]

Purchased an Essential Outdoor 2nd Gen camera. The camera keeps going offline. Checked WiFi connectivity, signal strength, etc all checks out fine. Network strength shows strong, however the camera goes offline randomly. It eventually comes back online, sometimes within minutes, sometimes hours or days later. Need some guidance on what could be causing the problem. 

[BrookeN]

I have reached out to our development team to investigate the behavior you are seeing. I will update the community as soon as possible. 

[jguerdat]

It could be 2.4GHz interference. Try moving the camera to a different location to see if that fixes the issue.

[Pam66]

Moved camera, no difference. Here’s what I’ve observed so far.
Camera seems to go offline mostly at night. 

Once motion is detected in that area, within minutes camera comes back online and stays on until the following night. 
Other devices ( including cameras) aren’t dropping off. 

[jguerdat]

How close are you to the nearest neighbor's house? Just wondering if their WiFi is interfering with the signal. You can use a WiFi app on your phone to check during the day and then at night to see if there's a difference while standing next to the camera.

[Pam66]

An update to this issue.  After over a month going back and forth with support, this issue was not resolved.  All of a sudden it stopped going offline, then after almost a month it started all over again.  Last update from support was to move camera near router, check wifi connectivity, make sure you are on 2.4 ghz network, check upload speed on internet, ask isp for increase of upload speed, etc.  Nothing worked.  Frustrated at lack of personal support given, it's like they are reading off of the support articles already written from Arlo, of which I have already read.   I have computer knowledge as well as network knowledge, but I can't imagine someone without some network knowledge trying to get these gen 2 cameras to work.  Anyway, it's going offline again, we walk out create motion, and it comes back online.  If anyone has had this issue and has solved it, I would love to hear from them.

[BrookeN]

I have reached out to support so they can look into this further with you. They will be reaching out as soon as possible. 

[Kelvingap]

I have a same issue the camera goes offline and can't connect, no response and motion detected logo appear on apps but keep connecting then frozen. Checked WIFI under 2.4Ghz, no issue found on other cameras when its connect to my base station.

[Pam66]

Sorry you are having same issue but glad it’s not just me. Hopefully this can get resolved. 

[KWB2]

I have the same issue. It worked well for a while then started to disconnect and uninstalled cameras from app. Had to reinstall cameras on app but disconnected and uninstalled by itself again and again. 

[Pam66]

When we first got the camera it was going offline constantly. Support said it needed a firmware update. Took camera down and updated camera. Condition still persisted. Support had me check signal strength, it was always strong. Camera stopped going offline for about two weeks then started all over again. Now it goes offline and online at various times thru the day. When it goes offline, if you walk in front of it, in about five minutes time it does came back online. 

[prunesquallor]

I’m having the same issue. Camera about 18 feet away from neighbors house in a narrow side yard, dark too.

It seems to be about the location. I swapped the camera with another identical camera that had been working fine.

Within hours, the new camera in the problem spot was going offline, and the other location was just fine.

i haven’t contacted support bc i knew it would be useless, as the original poster experienced.

I’ll try moving the camera next, which is too bad, the original spot was perfect.

[sean_wong]

@ Pam
I too have professional experience.
I recently got a 4 pack and 3/4 will not maintain their boot sequence to the updated Firmware.
I ended up after 96 hours of wasted effort logged a ticket and had the issue of out of date Firmware raised to 2nd level support. The Level 1 help desk response was 'known issue, re-mediation is under way' try hard reset ( 25 seconds on the button) and re add to the App.

Check your Firmware levels against the latest set. I've learnt that my old set of Arlos whilst simple are probably currently better than the new range. I'm mildly unhappy but at least hte New Solar panels are not the same $ as last time and have seals on the ports.

Engineers are working on it .... which means that ... they are overloaded or don't have the best toolchain.
https://community.arlo.com/t5/Firmware-Release-Notes/Arlo-Firmware-Release-Table/m-p/1920885

[StephenB]

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@prunesquallor wrote:

It seems to be about the location. I swapped the camera with another identical camera that had been working fine.

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Try testing your internet speed at the camera location using your phone.

Use the free Ookla (speedtest) app.  Turn off mobile data during the test, to make sure you are testing your home wifi speed.

Upload speed is more important than download for the cameras.  The app will also report packet loss, which also could be a factor at the location.

[sean_wong]

Double Check your Firmware is up to latest
WiFi Channel overlap is very common on 2.4  spectrum, which is why the standards evolved. unfortunately your cameras may be in range of many WiFi Access points  /range extenders and routers offering connection automatically. Unfortunately they may be  hearing many more signals than just your own router.

[BrookeN]

Can you please provide app version as well as what type of device you are using?

[Pam66]

App 5.0.2

Essentials outdoor gen 2 VMC 3050

[BrookeN]

I have reached out to our development team to investigate the behavior you are seeing. I will update the community as soon as possible. 

[Pam66]

Thanks so much!!

[prunesquallor]

My device worked fine for about a week after a restart, and then went back into failure mode yesterday (not uploading any videos, not able to look at a live feed, but still showing battery level, and responds to a restart from arlo app). Just gave it a restart now; from past experience, it will fail again soon, and I'll have to repeat multiple times until finally I get lucky and things "stick" for a few days.

Edit: another thing I noticed this time is that the "motion sensor" icon for the camera was stuck in the orange color for the full time of the outage. I'm not sure if this was the case before, I had to look up what that icon meant.

An Ookla speed test from a spot near the camera (the camera itself is mounted about 3' higher than I can reach) gives 20.1 MPS download, 13.7 MPS upload, and no packet loss.

The camera itself should be getting a better signal than these numbers, the higher position gives it a better line of sight on my network, but I didn't feel like getting out a ladder to be sure.

[JoeB123]

I have the exact same issue. Both Essential Spotlight cameras and Pro4. Initially individual cameras would go offline by themselves and now they are all offline. My Plan is useless when the cameras are offline and I won't be back for an extended time period to reset. So much for a security system! There needs to be a way to reboot when not physically present and not have to be there and individually redo each camera every time. May need to investigate other options if reliability and stability can't be fixed.

[jguerdat]

If the camera is offline, there's no communication possible - it's offline. If you have set up remote access capability to your router, you could try rebooting that. Otherwise, someone with access to the house would be needed to follow your instructions.

A possibility is that the cameras' connection got broken and the batteries were depleted trying to reconnect. In that case the batteries will need to be charged before they will work again.

[prunesquallor]

I think what he means is that a reinstall is the only fix - that's what I've been experiencing. And at least in my experience, it's a temporary fix. I've had to do a fresh install of a camera in this location 3 times over the last two weeks.

When the camera starts to fail, it won't record, and it may or may not provide live video (I've seen both ways). Sometimes a restart from the app will fix this, but a couple of times now my camera has remained in this broken state across a dozen restarts.

The only good solution at that point is reinstalling the camera, which does require physically accessing it, and so I think the prior person's complaint is that he cannot do this remotely.

[Red15Baron]

Has this problem been resolved since October of this year? I’m having this issue, and from the comments it seems like it was left up in the air with no resolution. 
Any help will be appreciated.

[Pam66]

The camera was replaced. It worked fine for about two months now it’s acting up again. I have no solution to this problem unfortunately. 

[Red15Baron]

Does this mean that I purchased a VERY expensive paper weight. All it seems to be good for is to sit on my desk. I’ve disconnected and re installed it four times, and each time it re checks the firmware. I’ve also placed it next to the smart hub, so it’s not a question of where the camera is placed.