Yet another camera offline

[Brotham]

Wish I'd never 'upgraded' to Pro 2 now.

Yet another camera has gone offline after just a few days due to the battery being depleted, despite having 70% charge this morning.

This is the third of four cameras to do so.

I expect the remaining one to die at any time.

The other issue is the battery is either somehow becoming disconnected from the contacts or it is being ignored as sometimes physically removing and reinsering the battery works.

The software/firmware is seriously bugged in these new devices.

[Bill716]

So I just made the post above and two minutes later received a motion notice from both of my backyard cameras.  Sure enough, someone was walking through.  Now both of those cameras are offline as well.  So it looks like right after they worked properly and sent the notice, they went offline.  Go figure!

[Streak2]

I pulled the battery on the Pro 2 that was giving me grief.

I charged the battery and then just after re-inserting it and the camera coming back online the app. alerted me about the firmware upgrade.

[MrTonyToca]

I was told by the Forum moderator @JamesC just a few days ago that Firmware 1.124.0.0_15189  is the newest firmware and that if a newer one was release it would show up on the release notes page which I do not see has been updated.....

[djdannis]

Netgear Engineering has released field test firmware to specific customers. I'm one of them and can say they are working hard to try to resolve these issues ASAP... While I know it's frustrating to many (I'm a frustrated consumer too), I have to say I appreciate their willingness and trust to allow us to help them expedite a resolution. Not many tech companys would even listen, they are listening... Best thing we can do is continue to report our issues in this community to help provide crucial troubleshooting data to their Engineering team.

[Brotham]

I haven't experienced the off line issue for a day or so now but that doesn't mean the problem has been resolved. It can go days without it happening and then happen twice in a matter of hours.

What does seem to be improved is battery use/drain.

I checked the levels first thing this morning and despite4 multiple small videos, all 4 cameras are at the same level 6 hours later.

Compare that with losing anything up to 10% per day and having to recharge each camera twice since I purchased two weeks ago.

[mattsrs]

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djdannis wrote:

Netgear Engineering has released field test firmware to specific customers. I'm one of them and can say they are working hard to try to resolve these issues ASAP... While I know it's frustrating to many (I'm a frustrated consumer too), I have to say I appreciate their willingness and trust to allow us to help them expedite a resolution. Not many tech companys would even listen, they are listening... Best thing we can do is continue to report our issues in this community to help provide crucial troubleshooting data to their Engineering team.

---

Are you sure you don't work for Netgear? How is it nice of them if they are fixing a critical bug in their hardware/software that is in production? A big issue like this should have been caught and addressed in pre-launch product development. We (customers) have become their beta testers! Time is valuable and we are doing it for them for free while we have already paid for their product and they have made the profit 🙂

[jguerdat]

With the exception of a very few folks who have ever posted here and are identified by a Netgear avatar, we are all just users. Some have been involved in betas but mostly we're just here trying to help each other.

[djdannis]

Agree with both of you. Unfortunate that this product wasn't better vetted before launch, but it is what it is... Just trying to help the cause...

[cbaileyuk]

To keep you all updated, mine is into record territory now. Not crashed since Friday, so day five atm. Will keep you posted.

[Brotham]

Just got my first camera offline with the new firmware.

Seems it hasn't resolved it so it's off to Best Buy in the morning for a refund.

[Brotham]

Well that's just great!

My Best Buy account yesterday was stating return by November 2.

I just logged in and it states that the item is no longer returnable.

I'm done buying any more Netgear products, or from Best Buy.

[Bill716]

FYI - I've been using the latest firmware for a couple/three days now and I just had a camera go offline early this morning.

[cbaileyuk]

Well mine has gone offline this afternoon. Here's my history to date:

23.10.2017 18:30 (GMT) switched on Arlo 2 ONLINE
27.10.2017 16:20 Arlo 2 OFFLINE at 92% battery
27.10.2017 18:30 reset, now at 77% battery ONLINE
02.11.2017 12:30 OFFLINE

My current uptime record for Arlo Pro 2 is 6.5 days.

All other Arlo Pro 1s I own have been online for months and months. Absolutely no outage. Just the Pro 2 that is randmonly failing.

I won't be home for hours - so Netgear, the front camera is broken until I get home. Absolutely pointless in this state.

[V8]

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cbaileyuk wrote:

I won't be home for hours - so Netgear, the front camera is broken until I get home. Absolutely pointless in this state.

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Imagine if you where not even in the country and wanted to check on your home/premises/pets/family etc.

[cbaileyuk]

Entirely agree. This current firmware is not fit for purpose. I will have to swap back to the Arlo Pro 1 for the front of the house and wait for a fix.

[V8]

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cbaileyuk wrote:

Entirely agree. This current firmware is not fit for purpose. I will have to swap back to the Arlo Pro 1 for the front of the house and wait for a fix.

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Firmware is debatable, as I've said previously this same issue is evident in the Arlo Pro 1st Gen. My money is on hardware, and possibly wifi adapters draining the battery and locking out access to the camera until you pull the battery and reset it. There is only so much you can leverage through a firmware update.

[cbaileyuk]

I have four Pro 1s and that has never happened (certainly six months of use) unless you are suggesting I am lucky?

This, from my experience is not a Pro 1 issue but is absolutely a Pro 2 issue. 

[V8]

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cbaileyuk wrote:

I have four Pro 1s and that has never happened (certainly six months of use) unless you are suggesting I am lucky?

This, from my experience is not a Pro 1 issue but is absolutely a Pro 2 issue. 

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I've actually had this issue in Pro 1s, hence why I'm going through a refund with Netgear (not the main problem but it is amongst other issues), but even in the Arlo Pro 1 there are others with this problem but to a lot lesser extent. I am perturbed why people also seem to accept that 'pulling batteries' is the answer in any scenario, as it isn't a fix, it is a 'work around'. This is why I'm saying firmware can leverage only so much to lessen the impact. I'm not suggesting you are lucky, just that you haven't experienced it with your cameras'. Who knows it may be a particular version or release of the internal wifi adapter/hardware (which I can bet they source from somewhere else). Maybe even this can be 'updated' itself with a new FW revision? I don't know.

The symptons suggest lack of access through WiFi (whether this be lock up, channel issues or other), battery drain with Wifi potentially operating continuously as even if the camera is off, this would be the largest power drain if it's not recording content and the camera in an almost constant 'trigger' state.

[pebarry]

2 cameras off line. Same issue. Kind of sad there has only been 1 reply by the Arlo Moderator on the issue

[Brotham]

Well I managed to get Best Buy to manually produce a return label, despite the system claiming the window was closed (it's a bug in their software as the final day is actually today).

Mine are going back today and I'll shop around for something else.

[cbaileyuk]

For absolute clarity here, I do *not* see pulling batteries as a fix. That is why I said I will revert back to the Arlo Pro 1 camera I have.

Further, and for the avoidance of any doubt, I have never experienced this offline issue with any of my Pro 1 cameras. There has never been any need to pull batteries. The only time those camera have come off the wall is when they req'd charging. 

The Pro 2 conversely, has now been off the wall three times in under two weeks, just to address this lock up issue (i.e. reset). I expect that this will be resolvable via firmware as its too prevelant a problem. I cannot be sure on that but I expect it will be something software can accommodate. 

[V8]

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cbaileyuk wrote:

For absolute clarity here, I do *not* see pulling batteries as a fix. That is why I said I will revert back to the Arlo Pro 1 camera I have.

Further, and for the avoidance of any doubt, I have never experienced this offline issue with any of my Pro 1 cameras. There has never been any need to pull batteries. The only time those camera have come off the wall is when they req'd charging. 

The Pro 2 conversely, has now been off the wall three times in under two weeks, just to address this lock up issue (i.e. reset). I expect that this will be resolvable via firmware as its too prevelant a problem. I cannot be sure on that but I expect it will be something software can accommodate. 

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Sorry bud, I wasn't suggesting you did, but there are others here (in some cases 'super users') and in Netgear that seem to think it is, and keep making the same recommendations to people as if it is perfectly acceptable. I've lost count of the amount of times I had to get ladders out to scale a wall to 'reset' my Pro 1s. But my interest here in the Pro 2's is personal in respect that I wan't to see how this pans out and what they do.

I get you haven't had the issue on Arlo 1s, but I'm just stating that even though you haven't others have, so it's an issue that has been around for some time, but is now prevelent more so in the Pro 2s, as you have encountered.

My view in that there is a potential inherent hardware issue is based upon years of experience with netgear and generally across various areas of IT, in that IMHO not every problem can be fixed with a software tweak; but if someone from Netgear would care to enlighten us on what they are doing rather than things going into a black hole then people would be less frustrated and making assumptions. Lack of information/updates and detail is not a good place to start.

Safe to say anyway, it is that Netgear now need to address this issue head on and stop hiding behind their incompetence.

[meowiejuie]

This issue with Pro 2 is not good at all. As an owner of the Arlo version 1 and Arlo Pro, I was looking forward to the Pro 2 upgrade with 1080P. Since Pro 2 is not out in Canada yet, I have actually put in a preorder last week at bestbuy. After reading the problems with Pro 2, I have decided to cancel my order and so did a few other people I have referred Arlo Pro to. Netgear needs to focus more on Q&A for their products and stop releasing products to the market full with bugs.

[cbaileyuk]

So back home, removed the Arlo pro 2 from the wall, unplugged the battery, back online. 22% battery. It had gone from 67% when it went offline to 22% in 7 hours. Something is very wrong with this code.

23.10.2017 18:30 (GMT) switched on Arlo 2 ONLINE
27.10.2017 16:20 Arlo 2 OFFLINE at 92% battery
27.10.2017 18:30 reset, now at 77% battery ONLINE
02.11.2017 12:30 OFFLINE
02.11.2017 19:25 reset, now at 22‰
02.11.2017 recharging

[cbaileyuk]

23.10.2017 18:30 (GMT) switched on Arlo 2 ONLINE
27.10.2017 16:20 Arlo 2 OFFLINE at 92% battery
27.10.2017 18:30 reset, now at 77% battery ONLINE
02.11.2017 12:30 OFFLINE
02.11.2017 19:25 reset, now at 22‰
02.11.2017 recharging
02.11.2017 22:00 100% ONLINE

Let's see how long it lasts this time. If the next failure is a quick one, ie under 6 days, the Pro 1 will but put back up and this will sit in a box until Netgear sort the code properly.