Arlo Pro 2 system will no longer stay online.

[Just2Much]

We've been using the Arlo Pro 2 system since about 2019. It worked flawlessly for quite a long time.

Recently, however, it goes offline on a regular basis and will not stay online for longer than 15 or 20 minutes.

In doing research for this problem, I noticed that people were complaining about the Arlo system broadcast piggybacking on the signal from a nearby modem or router, and probably or likely causing conflicts, and indeed mine does that as well. However, as far as I know, it's done that for years and it worked flawlessly up until recently.

So with that in mind for troubleshooting purposes I ran an ethernet cable into the basement and put the base station down there, so it's a good 40 or 50 feet away from the modem upstairs yet it still moves it's signal so that it's on the same channel as that on which the modem is broadcasting.

It will even attach itself to the signal of a 2nd network, also upstairs, seemingly because it's in closer proximity.

So I did a factory reset on the original 4500 modem, hooked all the cameras back up with the same exact result.

I then ordered the newer 5000 model hooked it up, same exact problem.

It will stay online working well for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, sometimes longer, then goes offline. All 3 cameras simultaneously stop working, a progress, or lack thereof, wheel starts spinning until each respective window is still, going back to the picture it had when the cameras came online.

For a long time I got no error messages at all. It would just go offline and then sometimes even try to get back on, and often successfully would do so.  It no longer even tries.

Now I'm getting varying error messages. For awhile it said that said "this device (cameras and base station) is unreachable" yet I could boot right back up immediately thereafter.  Just recently I started getting a new message in a completely new dialogue box that says "streaming has failed".

Considering that this doesn't happen in a vacuum, I'm thinking they got some glitches with their hardware and they know it.

All updates have been done to the system.

Anybody have any thoughts or experience with this?

I thank you, in advance, for your time and effort.

B

[StephenB]

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@Just2Much wrote:

In doing research for this problem, I noticed that people were complaining about the Arlo system broadcast piggybacking on the signal from a nearby modem or router, and probably or likely causing conflicts, and

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For better or worse Arlo (actually Netgear) designed the hub to follow the strongest wifi channel it sees.  There is nothing you can do to prevent that.  Some have deployed a cheap extender near the hub that nothing else connects to, in order to trick the hub into following a specific channel.  Personally I wish that Arlo provided a way to set the channel - but they haven't done that.

While there are some situations where this approach misbehaves, there is no real evidence that is your problem.

I suggest putting your hub back near the router (as far away as the supplied ethernet cable reaches - 5-6 feet).  Then measure your home wifi signal strength at the camera locations with your phone.  You can use the Ookla speedtest app for this, with mobile data disabled.   If you have extenders or a mesh, turn that stuff off during the test.   If your router lets you disable 5 ghz wifi, then turn that off during the test.  The upload speed is particularly important, as is packet loss.

Also, the next time this happens see if you can ping your hub.

[Just2Much]

Nice!

Sounds like good ideas!

After things are squared away, there isn't any reason not to reactivate the 5GHz band, correct?

[StephenB]

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@Just2Much wrote:

After things are squared away, there isn't any reason not to reactivate the 5GHz band, correct?

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Turn everything on after you complete the measurement.  The reason to turn off 5 ghz is that the cameras connect with 2.4 ghz, so it's best if the phone connects on the same band during the speedtest,

[Just2Much]

Well, I figured it out.

I discovered in my troubleshooting efforts that the "streaming failed" and, or, the "device is unreachable" at exactly 30 minute intervals regardless of what the rest of my wifi system was doing or how many of the 3 cameras I have were online.

I instantly thought that that doesn't sound like a glitch.

It sounds like a feature.

Indeed, customer service pointed out that I'm using "end of life" products that are no longer supported.

So, instead of warning me that my system was going out of date, out of service, they let me **bleep** with it blindly on my own until I discovered that I need to update, of course, at a significant cost.

This also explains why the new base station doesn't have a built-in micro sd card slot.

We now have to pay for online storage.

I understand that this is a very competitive market economy, but it pisses me of that I had to spend SOOOO much time researching and downtime security-wise to figure this out.

They should have warned me in advance.

Not sure what I will do now.

Grrrrr

B

[DannyBearAgain]

From my past observations,  arlo Cameras have always had a 30min streaming limitation as long as 2019 or earlier unless you have a paid CVR plan which is limited to a single camera with  viewing from their website login only.

The limit is not exactly fixed to 30mins but can vary by up to - 10mins so you cannot automatically restart it every 30mins plus making the base go offline is used to compliment this feature.