Arlo Base Station

[Sussexdude1]

Over the last two days my home station seems to change my time zone at midnight every day, this being a huge pain when scanning back over recordings. I have tried resetting on Arlo web site, iPad and iPhone but midnight strikes time zone changes again. HELP !

[wellfleetion]

So just like last night, cam went offline at about the same time as the night prior within ten minutes and cam back online at the same time.

Last recording was 7:28 PM and the next recording is 9:00 PM (Arlo Cam reported as "offline"). And just like last night, it is now recording as it should after coming back online at 9:00 PM.

[fractalchic]

Our base station went offline a couple of hours ago however we’re still continuing to receive motion and audio alerts from the cameras.

Using the app or the web interface doesn’t seem to make a difference - it says that the base station is offline and you can’t see any videos in the library.

What the hell is going on with these systems lately? So many issues...

[ChinJing]

I think dearjohn12 is ahead of me. A few days ago I think it was him who reported after the base went offline and then the cameras would reset to 80% sensitivity in the mode. Now we are catching up. This is the 4th base station we are testing - 2 routers - and they all go offline. But just today after going offline at least 3 times - one of the cameras reset to turn the led battery full light on , 80% motion sensitivity, no audio detection , and optimized video quality. All different than what we had it set as. So it looks like we are now catching up to the other folks who have this issue. I just want to report I have spoken to several people at tier 2 tech support. At least 3 different people there. One of them told me that this is a known issue that they will get a firmware update for ASAP they are working on it. What is really horrible is that arlo will not let people know about this and teir one tech support doesn’t have any clue this is an issue. It seems like things are just getting worse day by day with arlo and I don’t know how they can fix this with a firmware update and why they haven’t already this has bean going on for almost 3 weeks. Why did they prioritize a time zone change issue over the bases going offline which is more critical. This experience with arlo and this firmware update is by far the worst experience I have ever had with any electronic device and their customer support. There was only one good person I spoke to at tier 2 tech support who was helpful.

[Dearjohn012]

My Arlo Pro was working fine this morning and it went offline around 10am and stayed offline until I came home at 7pm. I pressed sync button and it began to flash Amber and Blue Light. It won’t connect to my base station. I think it’s dead now. It’s stuck in firmware update mode cycle for the last 2 hours or more.

I Hate Arlo now. Money lost!

[ChinJing]

Maybe users can make a report to the online websites who recommend arlo products like CNET, consumer reports, tech hive, anyone who will listen. Those websites have online contact forms where you can report a story. Since they recommend arlo pro cameras they might be interested To know about the problems users experience. If they publicize the problems arlo might take it more seriously. Because this is supposed to be a security camera system. And if they go offline several times a day then arlo should inform customers about the problem. It’s not very nice to just let the customer figure it out and not give them any information on this problem and leave people hanging. We have invested a lot of money in arlo cameras but after this experience I would not recommend arlo anymore.

[Dearjohn012]

Arlo level 2 just called me. They said my camera is dead offered to replace my camera and had no explanation on what caused it.

Also, they haven’t received enough report about base Station going Offline so they may or may not address that issue with the firmware update next week.

Only the time zone will get addressed for sure they said.

[ChinJing]

Arlo probably didn’t receive enough reports because people may not recognize the problem. There are other posts about missed motion or arlo not detecting motion. If all the lights on the base are green all 3 lit up and the cameras are not recording or notifying and you call tech support and they just give you a run around how would you know that the base is offline. You have to look very carefully at the app. Arlo is possibly doing something sneaky because the app now will have a picture of your cameras and it just won’t have the battery indicator nor maybe the WiFi signal underneath each camera. But it’s not obvious the base is offline. The app doesn’t say that. People may just think motion detection is not working or maybe they didn’t set up the camera the right way. Actually the problem is the base is offline. If there is actually no internet I think the middle base station light turns amber. So it’s just not obvious what is going on. The time zone change was an indicator of the offline problem which was fixed - but not the offline base. Maybe arlo cannot fix the offline base or doesn’t know how to. Or maybe they have some other reason for torturing their customers maybe they think people will go buy arlo ultra or maybe they want to collect money from shipping fees for all the replacement base stations.

[Mjbeuke]

I'm about completely fed up with this. I bought over $1,000 in this garbage 2 months ago - started out great is now literally shiny new completely useless garbage....

Not only is my base station intermittently losing connectivity as it is for countless others in this thread complaining of the same issue - but to make matters worse, every time the station freezes my doorbell loses connection with my front door camera and chime and all have to be completely removed from my account and synced..... ARGHHHH

I am extremely tech savvy and have done now 3 COMPLETE resets and wasted countless hours - removing all devices from my account and uninstalling the phone app, pulling all batteries and power cords from every device, holding the "reset" pin button for 20 seconds and fully resetting the station, completely re-adding and resyncing it all - and it STILL is doing this crap..... I've also gone to BestBuy and replaced both the doorbell and chime intitally - still did it.... and then bought a 1 camera and pro 2 base station kit and tried the new camera at the front door and new base station..... guess what..... updated to new firmware - all 4 new items STILL DID IT!!! Within 2 hours base station froze, doorbell-camera-chime all lost connection to eachother yet show up in the app as connected (no video or anything upon ringing the doorbell), same problems....

I have 100% proven that this is in no way shape or form my system, network, router, or any other issue on my end - nor is it faulty equipment.....

I bought this system and for a while had full confidence in it. I can now say I literally have ZERO confidence in Arlo. I was shammed, I wasted my money - and the only thing I AM sure of if Arlo will literally nose dive as a company with this sort severely lacking customer service. Its really a shame as it is a solid hardware base - they just can't get their frikkin act together to save their life and put out a functional firmware to support it.... What I really don't understand is.... IT WORKED!!!! Why in the SamHell did you mess with the firmware and completely screw everything up for all of your customers. It all started with trying to water down the video quality probably a money-saving tactic.

They are clearly desperate as a company. Its obvious everywhere you turn and with every interaction with the company and their "customer service". I am telling all of my friends family or anyone who cares to know to STAY FAR AWAY from this garbage. I hope they fix it for my sake - but I've completely written it off at this point. If not now, this company is doomed to go belly-up soon then all of our equipment will be paper weights.

[breadvan579]

Following an unplugging of the network and power cable, opposed to pressing the on / off button...for now it is working.  Lets see how long it lasts.

Thanks

[ChinJing]

Hey Mjbeuke
I did the same thing as you went out and got a new base station we tried 4 in total. New router. Called isp to troubleshoot. Spend countless hours climbing ladders in the dark. Every single time the base stations were going offline. We have 2 connected to the same router and they go offline at different times. Arlo is very bad because the app doesn’t say offline when the base is offline. And sometimes the green internet light is still on but the base is frozen. The only indicator is at time there is no battery icon or WiFi icon under the cameras in the app and the mode is getting information. Arlo refuses to acknowledge the issue and has its customers running in circles for weeks. There are hundreds of posts about this. But arlo tech support refuses to say there is a problem. People will for sure be calling about missed notifications or recordings not realizing their base is offline because all the lights are still on the base. We haven’t heard anything from the arlo moderator about this issue. They just keep merging our threads together and tell us to report it and we keep posting but here nothing back. Is there a firmware update in the works for this ? This is supposed to be a security system. It’s the most insecure piece of electronics I have.

[NicheFarmer]

This may be off topic but it also may suggest some corrective actions for the problems we are all seeing so the moderators can put this where it belongs. And sorry for the long post but again, I am trying to provided useful information for users and support.

Since the 1.12.2.2_2754 firmware update my systems have been running pretty well but it seems like one of them was not recording from midnight to morning. It is remote configuration (away from where I usually am) and mostly used to check for wildlife activity. It has shown no activity from midnight until morning at a location that often has some.

This morning, my wife decided to test the cameras at 6AM. She went to the location, walked in front of each of them and looked at the recordings - nothing!

I checked them out and noticed that the base unit was on (3 green lights) and seemed to be talking to the network (blinking middle light) but there were no recordings and no network traffic. I have a Google Wifi network that can monitor traffic at the device level (base station) as well as remotely monitors the network and records traffic history. The network was working fine. I also noted that the infrared lights on the camera in front of me were not on (they are normally on whenever the camera thinks it is dark and it was dark).

On poking around, I noticed the mobile (Android) app said the system was disabled in the Mode section. This doesn't show up under Devices and live viewing is supported. Probing a bit further, the schedule for the current time (12AM-11AM) was set to active FOR MONDAY ONLY (it was Tuesday). If I set it up this way it was a mistake but I check the schedules when I set them because this has happend before (actually, just after the new firmware was installed(?)).  On further probing, I found the schedule in Windows/Edge said the system was armed and the schedule was set for the entire week. The results for the Windows and Mobile apps were different! 

I use the schedule to control camera sensitivity across the day. It is set with everything fully active (Armed: 99% sensitivity) between 12AM and 11AM, reduced sensitivity (Midday Armed: 85% - to minimize triggering from cloud shadows) on the outdoor cameras between 11AM and 5PM, and then back to full active (Armed) from 5PM to 12AM.

I corrected the schedule on the mobile app (activating all days of the week) and everything worked properly - all cameras recording, IR lights on where appropriate, base station blinking, network traffic detected and the same schedule on the moble and desktop apps.

By the way, I have two Arlo Pro2 systems with 4 cameras each at different locations (on different accounts). While they are not set up exacly the same, they are both using schedules to control camera activity (I turn one camera off during the day on the 2nd system). The second system works fine and I haven't seen this issue.

The bottom line is check your schedules. It seems that there is an inconsistency between the mobile and desktop apps that may be disabling cameras without letting you know it. The base stations will look normal but arn't actually recording and desktop app will report everything working when it is actually disabled.

[wellfleetion]

Excellent post, NicheFarmer! Thanks so much for the very thorough post. I just checked my scheduling and noted 2 days that were schedule for the cam to be “Disarmed”! I removed these settings. I suggest others check this as well. This was also not done by me, so it must be a software issue yet again. I sure as hell hope it does not keep changing back like the time zone issue that just got corrected.

[wellfleetion]

So my cam just went offline breifly at exactly 9AM. Base station indicated the base was connected. I checked the scheduling feature incase the software activated it again and there weren't any scheduled events. I believe this is the same time it went offline yesterday, only this time it was offline very breifly, only about 11 minutes as opposed to the usual hour or so. But my app noted one thing that is correlating with this behavior; just before it goes offline it seems to record a super brief video clip of 10 seconds when it is set to record for 2 minutes. This is a definate pattern I'm seeing prior to the cam disconnecting.

I am pretty sick of being a beta tester and wastinmg my time, that's for sure. I should be being paid for my time wasted!!!!

[NicheFarmer]

I suspect this scheduling problem does occur without our control and may be caused by teh mobile app. We use both the mobile app (on two different phones) and the desktop. 

---

@wellfleetion wrote:
Excellent post, NicheFarmer! Thanks so much for the very thorough post. I just checked my scheduling and noted 2 days that were schedule for the cam to be “Disarmed”! I removed these settings. I suggest others check this as well. This was also not done by me, so it must be a software issue yet again. I sure as hell hope it does not keep changing back like the time zone issue that just got corrected.

---

[Keck]

I called support yesterday when my base went offline and wasn’t automatically reconnecting. I have the same problem with the base going off line a few times a day. I don’t reset the base anymore because it usually reconnects on its own. Since it was currently offline I called support and they wanted to give me the “reset your base”, I said no and that’s not the problem. They sent me a RMA to get a new base because they don’t know why it’s happening. I purchased the system 9/23/18 at Best Buy. We’ll see what the new base does.

There is definitely a disconnect between the app and web accounts. I’ve seen the same issues others are having with settings. Also, support had my street address as a CA city. I live in FL. Seems like Arlo is changing hands or the support is not really Arlo but a third party.

[Djam311]

Time zone issue seems to be resolved, but still getting random base disconnects. They seem to resolve themselves, but still  not optimal.

[RB321]

Seems this whole system is all over the place! I have three items as bases essentially, a Pro 2 Base, an Ultra Base, and a Bridge. There are real inconsistencies between the iOS app and web portal with modes. I too have schedules to turn cameras off and on different time of the day, and to change sensitivities to ignore sunlight. When I look at my PC, all modes are as they should be, as per what I have done on the schedule versus what it actually says, but the iOS app on ALL my iOS devices are all the same, but different from my PC! I too have had random schedule blocks disappear for no reason, but get this.....On my iOS devices the Bridge and Ultra have the clock symbol showing schedule, but says they are disarmed. If I change the status on my app, to say armed instead of schedule it works across all my devices (iOS and PC), but regardless of what device I turn the schedule back on (they ALL follow each other) the iOS app shows the clock symbol, and that the Ultra Base and Bridge are disarmed. WTF Arlo?

[NicheFarmer]

After seemingly behaving themselves over the past few days, both of my Pro2 systems dropped around noon. Neither of them came back right away and I got tired of waiting so I power cycled them. They came back reasonably quick after that (better than sitting around waiting for something to happen). I think if you don't force the reboot, they come back in an hour or so but you loose recordings in the process.

I also noted that when they came back, one of the cameras had it's power light turned on (since all of mine are powered, the light is annoying and is turned off) and the Flicker Adjustment on the other system was set to Auto (60 Hz) (I set it to 60 Hz as a signal that they device has been rebooted but it only changed on one of them.)

What is worse is the schedule was screwed up on both of them. Again, this wasn't noticable on the PC app (Windows/Edge) where everything looked good. On the Android app, the morning timeframe on one system was set for only Monday and the evening timeframe on the other system had disappeared. I had to fix it on the mobile app as it didn't even show up on the PC app.

Apparently when these reboots occur, you need to check your schedule on the mobile app because it is getting screwed up but the PC app says everything is fine.

Clearly, this isn't the problem causing the reboot but is a side effect of the reboot that points out a problem with synchronization of the mobile and desktop app schedules.

[ChinJing]

We started noticing the same thing. We have 2 base stations arlo pro 2 same location. Same router. They go offline at different times. We have tried 2 routers 4 base stations. They all have the same offline issue. Wait an hour sometimes they power cycle back on. Recently all 3 lights can be solid green on the base - but the base goes into the frozen offline state. When it came back one camera had the led Blue light on video set to optimized performance and motion sensitivity at 80 percent and audio detection was off. All are different from what I had set it to. This doesn’t happen every time it goes offline though. Ours go offline 1-5 times a day. Previously we found that the schedule in mode was constantly switching to disarmed at midnight even though we didn’t have disarmed in the schedule - so we didn’t have any recordings. Now we use a custom mode or armed and change it manually. Add these all to the long list of features on the base not working including usb not formatting. The base stations going offline is the worst - we need the cameras to notify us of things and we just cannot rely on them anymore. We invested so much money in this system. Otherwise I would have bean looking for a replacement after the firmware update in May. And not a word from arlo about the offline issue.

[RB321]

NicheFarmer, you may have uncovered the issue!!!!!!! Apply for a job @ Arlo, so you can sort their sh!t out! Anyone using a schedule from the portal...it doesn't work, the system seems to follow what is selected on my iOS device, and ignores what I select on the portal, if I turn all the scheduling off, my system seems to work fine...fix this Arlo!!!!!

[bketchel]

Time zone issue seems to be fixed for about 10 days now. Running firmware 1.12.2.2_2754. I believe it stopped changing time zone when it updated to this version. However, afterward it began telling me my USB back needed formatted. I pulled it out and plugged it back in and it worked. Also afterward, have had problems with not recording when I know there was activity and base going offline/not recording anything.

[NickDi]

Schedules, Time zones, Flicker adjustments, etc etc... all changing are symptoms of the real problem.  The real problem is that the Base Station goes into a flaky state where it loses internet connection for a period of time (sometimes an hour) 1-5 times per day and restarts.  This results in lost recordings (the cams don't record during this period) and when the base restarts, many settings get screwed up.  Since the Timezone being screwed up was so painful to many... Arlo wrote a fix so when it comes back it goes back to the prior Timezone setting.  But this only fixed one of the symptoms of the bigger problem.  The lost base station / lost internet connection  is the common thread.  Not yet fixed.  Why is this happening?  Arlo has been silent on this.  This system is seemingly tied together with spaghetti code.

[wellfleetion]

NickDi is 100% correct. 

Arlo, are you hearing us??? Your system check site (status.arlo.com) still makes no mention of the past time zone issue or the still occurring offline issue. Why, why, why , why???? 

[NicheFarmer]

ChinJing,

You're getting a like for that one!

I went back and checked the camera that had the (battery charged) light on and it had the Power Management set to Optimized (I keep them at Best Video), the Sensitivity set to 80 (I keep it set at 99) and the Notifications turned on (they were off because they are annoying). There are apparently a lot of settings that are getting changed when this problem occurs but it doesn't seem to happen to all of the cameras or have any clear characteristics that identify which cameras are affected. I guess we need to check all the settings in all the cameras (and base station) when this problem occurs to get our systems fully up and running.

Thanks for the tip!

[ChinJing]

Yes exactly. It only happened to one out of 2 cameras on the base. It seems that the issues are only getting worse and more numerous and not better.