Camera offline on known good battery. USB power OK. Camera sees battery OK. Unable to factory reset.

[HiMark]

Hi All,

1 of my 5 Arlo Pro 2 cameras just started malfunctioning after being disabled to recharge the battery. (The camera is mounted outside on battery power, and brought inside to recharge, but I don't want it enabled while inside/recharging.) Once the battery was fully charged (solid blue LED), I unplugged it and remounted it outside; then when I went to the app to reenable the camera, it was shown offline. Removed the battery for 10 seconds and reinserted it, but the LED did not light at all. Removed the battery from one of my other working cameras and put it in the malfunctioning camera; still no LED light at all. (Also swapped the recently charged battery into the other camera and that camera works fine.) Plugged in the USB charging cable to the malfunctioning camera and the LED responds normally: 1 slow blink followed by several fast blinks, and the camera connects to the Base Station and operates normally.

Also note that with the battery inserted and USB power cable connected, the icon shows a battery/lighting bolt and the battery does charge. And when the battery is removed, but the USB is left connected, the icon changes to a plug. So the battery connection seems OK.

Lastly, I did remove the camera and resync it (while it was on USB power, obvi), but that had no effect. And the LED will not blink amber even after holding the sync button for 1 minute (but it will go into sync -- the LED will slow blink blue -- once I release the sync button). And unfortunately, the camera is out of warranty.

TIA - Mark

[jguerdat]

Check the battery connections for both the battery and camera. Maybe clean them with some alcohol ()not the goood stuff - denatured). If no good, you'll have to come up with an appropriate AC adapter to keep using the camera.

[HiMark]

Thank you for taking the time to read and reply! Unfortunately, cleaning both sets of contacts with rubbing alcohol didn't have any effect. Neither did subsequently cleaning them with a pencil eraser and blowing with compressed air, but thanks for the idea. At this point, my gut is telling me that there's an issue with the camera's firmware, but since there doesn't seem to be a way to force a firmware update (or is there?), I think I may be out of luck since I bought these cameras to run off battery power because hardwiring them in the locations where I need them is not feasible.

Thanks again for trying - Mark

[StephenB]

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@HiMark wrote:

my gut is telling me that there's an issue with the camera's firmware, but since there doesn't seem to be a way to force a firmware update (or is there?)

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There's no way to force an update.  Did you check the firmware (when it was powered)?

Another possibility is the camera's battery circuitry simply failed.

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@HiMark wrote:

I think I may be out of luck since I bought these cameras to run off battery power because hardwiring them in the locations where I need them is not feasible.

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A newer camera (Pro4 or the Essential) would require a paid subscription for cloud storage. It might be hard to find a new Pro2, but there likely are some used ones out there that might do.