No live stream from Essential Gen2 2K but records fine

[Richard398]

Hi guys. I recently decided to give arlo system another try since their gen2 cameras seemed to fit the bill for what I needed. I have limited Blink system running and have used Wyze cams as well. This essential gen2 camera has been giving me the run around trying to get live video. It is the only thing on the outdooor wireless access point and has strong signal but it will just not feed live stream (only on rare occasion does it work). Have reset/restored camera a few times as well as redid the app. Same result on my.arlo.com as on the phone app. One additional thing odd is the network test will say I cant have more than 5 streams running and to remove some cameras but I only have the one with nothing else active. Any other systems are disabled as well as I troubleshoot this problem. Any ideas? It is still on the free trial as there is no way I would pay for this as is.

[jguerdat]

What happens if you bring the camera indoors closer to your router/AP?

[Richard398]

Hi jguerdat and thanks for the reply. The exact same thing happens whether I am inside next to the router or outside 20 feet from the outdoor AP. It is very good signal outdoors and arlo reports it is a strong signal. The inside pc that is wired to the router does the same thing on my.arlo.com. I do notice it will bring in the live video about once every 24 hours and as soon as it does that is it for about another 24 hours. I feel like something is timing out before it can show live video again. Recorded video clips play fine although the notifications were a little wonky but I see they may have fixed a problem with that very recently. I had to turn my Blink system back on and it works fine on same AP but the issue with Blink is the cameras have weak wifi and do have to be pretty close to work. I was hoping to get away from them. I suppose I could set up an independent network, erase everything and try setup again but it seems like a lot just to test stream live video. As far as that goes I have never had an issue with other systems. There is a couple more weeks left on the trial so I will keep trying to make it work up till that runs out.

[jguerdat]

Contact support to see what they may offer. Since you still have a trial subscription, use the app to go to Settings, Support. Choose your camera and scroll down to Contacts to start the conversation.

[Richard398]

Again thanks for the reply. I have had a case open with a rep named "Rosella" since day one which is about 2 weeks. Probably not a true technical support person as they keep saying sorry I am having a problem and keep offering the solutions that most front line support people offer. I am not sure how you get in touch with actual Arlo technical help. 

[jguerdat]

@JamesC , @ShayneS , @BrookeN  any suggestions?

[JamesC]

Richard398,

If the camera is intermittently live streaming successfully, this suggests some sort of interference or signal strength issue is present. When the camera is failing to live stream, are any error messages displayed?

If you would like to contact support and investigate further, use the Arlo mobile app to navigate to Settings > Support Center > from here you can open a ticket.

JamesC

[Richard398]

Thanks JamesC for the suggestions. I feel like the network is pretty solid outside and I am running a commercial grade AP but there is definitely something wrong. I will keep playing with it and trying different setup scenarios till I narrow it down. I have had a ticket open with support for 2 weeks now but perhaps will eventually get to the bottom of it. 

[Richard398 · Accepted solution]

Thought I should follow this up rather than leave it hanging. I can now view live video from the Essential Gen 2 camera. Woohoo! I ended up deleting, resetting everything again and starting from scratch except the camera already had the firmware update on it from previously. The big difference this time was the setup was done from my home wifi router off the built in wifi instead of off of external access point plugged into the home router. Let me state these were true access points with no routing/dhcp capabilities so they should have worked. In fact they work for everything else connected to them outside so don't know. Since it works with current setup I moved the home wifi router to a more central location and with the camera out on the fence it gets a "good" signal so I will leave it for now. I wonder if it was dropping live video before because it had to make more hops using access points? I may flash an old wifi router with linux AP software so I can try a third access point. I have to say the signal strength of the little camera is quite good considering it uses internal antenna. None of the other camera systems ever tried would reach reliably from the fence to wifi network inside the house.