VMC4030P with VMB5000 AU cannot connect

[DevNull0]

Hi,

We have a series of various models of Arlo cameras, including one VMC4030P which had lost its connection with the VMB5000 AU base station.  Following the troubleshooting documents, I removed the camera from the app (which I was able to do), and attempted to re-add it, using the sync buttons on both the camera and the base station, with the two devices sitting right next to each other.  I get amber flashing lights, and no connection to the device in the app.

I should note that I am not the primary owner of the location; I have had it shared with me by the primary owner, and the "Add a Device" option in the app is disabled for this location for me.  Does the owner need to do something to grant me permission to add new devices?  Or does he have to do it?

The troubleshooting doc suggests the next step is to perform a factory reset on the camera, but the document it links to does not provide instructions for doing that to this model of camera.  If thats really what I need to do next, how?

[DannyBearAgain]

The device add function can only be used by the owner login credentials and the app needs to be connected to the local network.

If your using a app with another account that has been granted shared access then you should not have been able to remove it unless it was originally add to that account.

That said your best option is to use the owner’s credentials to add the camera while the app is connected to the local network.

To reset the camera you remove the battery for at least 10sec.

[DevNull0]

"The device add function can only be used by the owner login credentials"

Amazing how helpful it would be if the app, or any of the troubleshooting documents, mentioned that fact.

I was definitely able to delete the camera from the location shared with me by the owner, despite the camera having existed in that location for over a year, and my account having been created last week.  I agree that, if I don't have permission to add things, I probably shouldn't have permission to delete them either.

[DannyBearAgain]

What is said about removing the camera is related to the owner account but you can remove access to the camera from the granted account.

To restore camera access, the owner will need to remove your granted access using their account and add you as new granted access and for you to accept the invite email again so you get all cameras again.

[DevNull0]

Thanks for that Danny.

I've done a factory reset on the hub, then re-added the 5 old cameras (Pro 2's and Ultra 2's) via the my.arlo.com web page.  They're visible in the web page, and capturing images successfully.  They are not visible by the account owner when that user logs in to the mobile app (Apple), nor are they visible by me in the web or the mobile app (Android), when that owner account re-shares them to my account from the web interface.  What is visible instead, by both the owner and in my account as shared by the owner, is a single new Outdoor Essentials 2X camera, that we added via the mobile app and shared previously.  That new camera, which is visible by both of us in the mobile app, is NOT visible by the owner in the web application.  If we try to add the new Outdoor Essentials cameras via the owner's web page, as successfully worked for all the older cameras, it tells us to use the mobile app instead.

[DannyBearAgain]

So to clarify, you have managed to add the hub and cameras to your new account that was since granted access from the owners account Or did you mean you readied them back to the owner’s account?

[DannyBearAgain]

Reading more it suggests that the owner is using the wrong account credentials on the mobile app so maybe seeing your account instead?

[DevNull0]

That is what it behaves like, but it's not possible.  The account owner does not have my account details, and those details have never been used from his device.

[DannyBearAgain]

Certainly strange behaviour, I have seen recently that arlo has updated their backend to now allow multiple login sessions from different devices using the same account credentials. Not sure if they included a bug with that.

I would suggest that you confirm who’s account has the hub and cameras connected to.

With the mobile app you need to logout from the account before changing account credentials as just closing the app will usually keep the app running in the background under the previous credentials.

[DevNull0]

Thats excellent news.  I was just thinking we should all delete all of our accounts, and start over, as a way of possibly sorting this mess out.  If I do that, I'd rather make a new one using an alias so the office account ownership is not tied to a specific employee anyways, and we could then let multiple people have access to the admin account.  But they'd need to be able to login from different devices using the same credentials... which from what you say should now be possible?

So far, it's acting a bit as if we have two different locations configured - one with only the old cameras, and one only with the new one.  But none of us appears to be able to see both locations from any one account/interface.

[DannyBearAgain]

The single granted access account on multiple devices sounds like a logical approach especially if you have a lot of employees. Less clutter for the owner account.

One consideration is it makes it difficult to remove a single employee granted access without changing the password and updating the other employees to also update password.

Just a question regarding the app UI that is being used by everyone, if anyone has a library page for recordings they are still using the older app UI that doesn’t work with the new app UI that has a feed page.

[DevNull0]

The plot thickens.  I deleted the one new camera from the app on my phone yesterday, in an attempt to force the app into sync. I noticed this morning that, while the app on my phone now shows no devices, I am still receiving notifications on my phone, about the old devices, that have been shared with me by the owner but which I have never been able to see on my phone!

Screenshots below of the home page and version page of the app on my Android phone.  Feed, and no Library.

[DevNull0]

Account owner is using an Apple app with a Feed tab and no Library.  The About page lists it as 

Version 4.1 (8201) Released 19 Aug 2024

We're both logging into the webpage at https://my.arlo.com/#/login

[DannyBearAgain]

The app UI type is selected by the arlo backend when you either upgrade the app UI at Arlo’s request or you try adding a new model camera. For your situation the hurdle is not an issue as both app accounts show the same.

So the question remains as to who has ownership of the cameras?

If the original owner has the cameras imported according to the web browser but not on his mobile then suggest he delete the app and install again to try and get it to resync.

[StephenB]

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@DevNull0 wrote:

I am still receiving notifications on my phone, about the old devices, that have been shared with me by the owner but which I have never been able to see on my phone!

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There will be two "Home" locations in the app (and browser) - one for your devices, and one for the devices in the other account. Are you looking in both?

It is a good idea to rename one of the locations, to help eliminate any confusion.

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@DevNull0 wrote:

I deleted the one new camera from the app on my phone yesterday, in an attempt to force the app into sync. I noticed this morning that, while the app on my phone now shows no devices,

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It's really hard to understand your overall setup (what cameras are in your account, what cameras are being shared with you).  And what account you are using when you describe your troubleshooting.

If the cameras are all in one location, it is possible to use the same account credentials on both phones (and logging in from multiple PCs/phones).  Arlo recently started allowing multiple logins.   The feature might still have some bugs, but might be simpler for you than using multiple shared accounts.

[DevNull0]

New Information!  While reconfirming a few things for the summary below, we noticed that the _web_ interface is different between the two accounts involved in this mess.  The owner of the account, when they log in via the web to https://my.arlo.com, is taken to an interface that includes a "Library" tab along the top of the screen, while my account, at the same address, takes me to a page with a menu bar down the lefthand side containing "Feed".  This sounds like the difference between the old app UI and new one that DannyBear tried to describe to me, but I thought they were referring to the mobile app, and didn't think to check if a single web url was redirecting to two entirely different interfaces...

I suspect that is at the heart of our problem, but I've written up this case history already, so I might as well save it...

There is one account, which I shall refer to as Owner, which should have devices.  That account was created quite some time ago, with a miscellaneous collection of Pro 2s and Ultra 2s, connected via a VMB5000 AU SmartHub.  This all used to work mostly fine.  We tried to add a new Essential 2X to it and were having some problems, so I created an account, which I shall refer to as Mine, to try to help out.  Mine made me create a Home location - which I renamed to "dumb", because I didn't want it and had no use for it - but does not, and has never had, any devices associated with it; it has only been used to view and modify the devices shared by Owner.  Owner shared the original working devices with Mine, and I could see them, but we still could not add the new camera.  Using the troubleshooting guides and some advice from these forums, I decided to remove everything from Owner and start over.  First I removed one device from Mine using the phone app - which doesn't seem like it should be possible, but it definitely removed it from the Owner account, not just my shared view of it.  When I found that I couldn't re-add the device, we decided it would be better to work directly from the Owner account.  So we logged in to the Owner account using the web interface, and removed all remaining devices from the Owner account.  Then I did a factory reset on the SmartHub.  Then, still using the web interface as Owner, I re-added the SmartHub to the account, and then reformatted the SD card in it.  Then I re-added the 5 old cameras to the account.  I'm fairly certain this added them to a new location, but it is possible that it used the old one and I just renamed it; I don't remember for certain.  All 5 of the old cameras showed as added in the web app for Owner, and I could see images being captured.  When I tried to add the new camera via the web app, it told me that I needed to use the mobile app.  I didn't have the Owner phone with me at that point, so I shared the 5 old devices with the Mine account.  When I logged in to Mine via the mobile app, I could see no cameras owned by Mine - as expected - but only 1 device shared to Mine from Owner in the shared location; the _new_ Essentials 2x camera that up til now we had been unable to get successfully added.  When I logged in to Mine via the web interface, I again see only the 1 new camera.  When I asked Owner to check their mobile app, they could see only the 1 new camera.  When they logged out and logged back in to the web interface, they could see the 5 old cameras, and could NOT see the 1 new camera.  At this point, I tried forcing all 4 interfaces - Mine and Owner, via mobile app and web interface - to manually log off and log on again, but nothing changed.

In an attempt to shake something loose, I deleted the new camera from Mine on the mobile app.  This removed it, as expected, from the Mine web interface as well.  As this was the only camera I had visible shared to me from Owner, the app has also removed the shared location from the location list.  Shortly afterwards I noticed that the Mine mobile app is still delivering notifications about activity from the 5 old cameras which were re-added to the Owner account, and which we had attempted to share with Mine, but which had never been visible from the Mine account.  (These are definitely from the cameras that were re-added to Owner after the factory reset, not somehow holdovers from before the reset, as I renamed the cameras when I re-added them, and the notifications are using the new names.)  If I click on one of those notifications, it takes me to the mobile app, which still shows no shared locations, and no devices.  The Owner account, meanwhile, still sees only the 1 new camera in the mobile app - this time, deleting it from Mine did not remove it from Owner - but from the web interface still sees the 5 old cameras, with the re-added names.

[StephenB]

Do you actually want two accounts? Or just one?

Note Arlo now does support multiple simultaneous logins, so you can log into the same account on two phones at the same time.

[DevNull0]

Yeah, just learned about that.  I'm in the process of generating a single group account, and starting this all over.  Just have to wait on a mailing list to use for the account.

[DannyBearAgain]

Also be aware that using a single account with multiple devices will require them to be authorised by the device set as the primary two-step authority.

What that would likely mean is that the users will need to have their web browsers reauthorised each time they login by the primary device user.

Also you may want to consider what you loose when switching to the new UI. Loss of custom modes and poorer usability.

[StephenB]

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@DannyBearAgain wrote:

Also be aware that using a single account with multiple devices will require them to be authorised by the device set as the primary two-step authority.

What that would likely mean is that the users will need to have their web browsers reauthorised each time they login by the primary device user.

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Phones and tablets can of course be trusted.  You will need to use 2FA with the browsers.  I'm not sure if the 2FA goes to all phones logged into the primary account, or just to one.

 If these becomes a problem for the browsers, you can set up friend accounts later on that are only for the web browsing (using the shared login only on the phones).  Another option is to use a shared email account, and then use email verification.