Arlo pro 3 flood light fails to activate at night

[Mogleem]

Hi community, i have an arlo pro 3 floodlight camera that constantly fails to activate the floodlight at night when motion is detected. I'm still able to activate the light manually within the app and can turn it on and off at will. I have removed/reset the device a number of times and reinstalled it within the app, the light will then activate along with the camera when movement is detected but after about a week or two the same issue appears and o light. I have the camera connected to constant power using the arlo external charging cable. It's becoming pretty frustrating. Has anyone else come across this issue before? I can only guess that it is a software issue as the light works fine when 1st set up, and when activated manually. Any help great fully received. Thanks

[SipasDad]

Hey Knight,

I was at our cabin last weekend and was finally able to run the tests that the Arlo engineers were asking for. Recall I have a special version of firmware that’s capturing some diagnostics. I submitted the files and am waiting to hear back what was learned. 

In the meantime, two things to try. Wont fix the issue, but maybe we can discover something about our setups that we have in common that leads to our issues. My guess is still that it has to do with our ISPs. I have a floodlight cam at my other house that works fine day in and day out - as almost everyone else’s does.  Both my floodlight cams are hardwired to 120V. I can’t think of anything different between them other than the ISP, and as you may also find out, the offline issue is somehow corrected by an action on their end.

1) Who is your ISP? What is the technology? (Fiber, DSL, cable, cellular)

2) when you have cameras showing offline, call your ISP tech support and ask them to put you on a different VLAN. You may have to try one or two VLANs, but mine start showing back online when I do this. I think the ISP occasionally moves me to one that is incompatible in some way when they do maintenance. Moving to a new one always works for some reason.

3) when the cams get into the state with no IR, just remove from AC power and see if this fixes it, versus the camera restart.

4) also, have you tried restarting your WiFi when this happens? Can’t recall. But this also fixes the issue for me.

let’s see how similar this issue is for us. There is something about our setups that cause this. But it’s not very common in the user community. Good luck!

[knightt]

Interestingly I think I can rule a number of things out through my setup and detach it from the ISP.  I have 4 cameras but it is almost always happening to two. I'm not sure if it's happened to the other two but if it has it was only once. The two that have the issue also have the clicking noise, my other two do not, or rather it is incredibly faint. This may not be related but is interesting.

They are all connected on mesh wifi but each one hits a different node. The nodes are all the same. There is nothing special about the two nodes on which the cameras fail.

Given that we don't get lots of users with this issue I feel it implies a bad batch perhaps or faulty component hitting some not others.

The only other common element is that the two that fail are triggered far more than the others. The test I need to do is to switch a working and failing camera's locations.

[SipasDad]

I think it’s probably not a bad build. A camera at our cabin that had the issue does not have the issue at our main house. Again- only thing different that I can perceive is the ISP. At the cabin, it’s fiber to the house and a local, co-op ISP. At the main house it’s Xfinity cable internet. But again, I think it’s some mystery parameter on the network setup, not necessarily the technology of how the signal gets to the house 

[SipasDad]

Hey Knightt,

were you able to try detaching from the WiFi to test for dependency of these issues on the ISP?

[knightt]

Arlo are currently replacing the cameras so I was going to see what that did. In the meantime I'd mentioned I'd bought a hub which, at least in CVR mode, was problematic. I've now disabled that and bought a Eufy continuous camera which I can highly recommend. Fraction of the price, records to local SD Card which you can access remotely, continuous recording and no subscription!

Anyway I still have the Arlo cams and since the hub went in (now as a wifi hub essentially and not doing CVR) the failing ones have not failed. It does imply you are correct with some sort of wifi issue but not necessarily ISP related. I've mentioned before but I have ASUS routers in a mesh setup.

[knightt]

Sorry I put the wrong name above. The new camera was Reolink.

Anyway another day gone and the hun still seems to be solving it. 

[knightt]

I now have a new one off the hub and an old one on the hub but the problem seems to have gone away across the board. I note a new firmware came out a few weeks ago and obviously auto updated.

Have your issues now gone? I wonder if the firmware update fixed it.

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Firmware-Release-Notes/Arlo-Pro-3-Floodlight-FB1001-1-080-27-0-25-82bc...

[SipasDad]

Hey Knightt,

I was on the diagnostic firmware until 3 days ago. I still had an occasional black video under that version. But now they have put me back on the factory version. So I’ll report back if I see any issues. Communication seems to have dropped off significantly on their end. Disappointing- but seems like some effort is still going on in the background. I wish they’d be a little more transparent about what they are trying. Pretty much silent on that.

[knightt]

I had a similar problem on comms. They sent a replacement camera to try to solve the ticking issue and the drop offs. I think the firmware solved the drop offs but the new camera still ticks. I responded to them on the ticket and they then left it too many days their end and so the ticket auto closed! If the blackout is fixed I think I live with the ticking as it sounds from others like a hardware fault that clearly they don't want to admit to as they'll have to replace too many cameras.

[SipasDad]

Hey Knightt,

Any updates on your end? I continue to get the black videos at about the same frequency as before. Which doesn't surprise me, I suppose, since Arlo told me that the firmware update did not contain any deliberate fix for this issue. Maybe I'm more surprised that you have gotten an improvement. 

[knightt]

Sadly not however I do have an interesting piece of information. I mentioned I bought a hub and whilst that was connected I did not have the issue. As soon as it went back on the wifi the problem has re-occurred. I have already returned the hub but could buy another I guess as a way of fixing it. I haven't bothered opening another ticket yet after they auto closed the last one.

Just a bit fed up with them I guess which is ultimately where they'd like me to be I expect so I don't bother them with more support tickets.

[knightt]

Any more luck your side? I noticed a new firmware got released. It hasn't don't anything to help the issue and if anything it is worse.

[SipasDad]

Hey Knightt,

Nothing definitive yet. I suggested to Arlo that the base station could help by isolating the ISP from the camera. The LAN created by the base station would buffer the floodlight while the base station had to deal with the ISP’s network parameters. They sent me one to try and it has definitely helped a lot The issue has happened only once in the last 6-8 weeks. That’s a huge reduction.

BUT - here’s what happened in that single instance. Resetting the camera made no difference at all. I reset it three times and still had black videos where the IR LEDs and light would not come on. Only resetting the *base station* fixed the issue. Not sure how to interpret that result. But maybe, just maybe, it reveals that the issue really is Arlo’s interface to the ISP and my particular ISP provoking an unwanted phenomenon. I’d bet it’s the same interface circuitry and firmware on most all their products. I realize that’s conjecture twisted to for the data points I have - but that’s all I have to go on at this point. 

AND - a new irritant with the base station. About once out of 5 times I open the app, the base station and the floodlight appear “offline”. It always resolved within a few seconds. But this is new and strange behavior. Again, I’ll say it sure seems related to network issues. And again, 3 out of 3 floodlight cams had the LED/light issue at our cabin. None show that effect at our main house. The only difference I can isolate is the ISP…

[knightt]

I had precisely the same experience. Much more reliable generally but when it died it died hard.

I also had the issue that many cameras were often black when logging in and I saw that as worse than losing the light overnight. Also I had to pay for the base station hence I sent it back.

[knightt]

Just as a quick update, I may have finally found a solution.

As you suggest using the hub was more reliable but when it died then it died hard and so this solution will likely only work if not on the hub.

So the solution has ended up being quite straightforward. The camera normally works for a few days before dying and a restart of the camera or the router fixes it. My router has the ability to reboot on a schedule so I've put it to do so once a night in the early hours. Since then the cameras have remained on and of course even if one does go bad it will never be more than 24 hours. Generally though I find it never has any dead time because I'm sure the problem is something time/activity related and as it never runs for more than 24 hours between resets I don't seem to have an issue.

[SipasDad]

That’s a clever solution. Remind me what brand of router you have.

The hub is working well for me. Haven’t had a black video in over a month now. I’ve had only one since I connected the floodlight via the hub. 

[knightt]

That's good to hear!

Router is Asus RT-A 88U with various other Asus nodes running as a mesh.

[carpenter3778]

I hope they are paying you for this 😅.

[indy898]

I have the exact same issues with two Pro3 Floodlight cams. Is there any other advice yet? I do not want the hassle of rebooting my router as some of my Arlo cameras go off-line and do not connect untilI do a physical reset?

[knightt]

I'm afraid I'm still on the reboot solution which has worked flawlessly. I still can't believe they haven't fixed this via a software update.

[SipasDad]

Arlo support never figured it out. At least that was the claim. BUT - my floodlight mysteriously stopped having this issue altogether when connected to a hub. It’s been 6 months without a black video.

I’m still convinced it’s related to how the device responds under some unknown conditions related to my ISP. The hub isolates the floodlight from the ISP and (I believe) has a more robust interface to the ISP than the floodlight does. 

Arlo closed my ticket without understanding the issue or how to fix it. Suggest you try a hub if you’re committed to keeping your Arlo investment instead of punting to a different product brand.

[indy898]

I was seriously thinking about the hub but I bought an access point to cable into my router and pls ein the front of my house on a pole to see if that might help? 

[indy898]

I have a suspicion it's something to do with the location as I have 4 Floodlights with 2 in front of house and 2 in backbutits the front ones that always have the issue even when I rotate them from back to front ?  

I'm already thinking if the new access point I bought to get abetter signalin front doesn't work I will look atorther branded floodlight cams.  Any suggestions? Thanks for your comments mate.

[indy898]

Ok I am getting a hub as I found it was on a really big pre Christmas sale from Arlo so just gave into trying it to fix this issue.  If needed it will allow me to reboot these csmeras via the hub on  regular schedule. I noticed that you need to wait until dark to reboot or it isnt successful to sort out the lights to go on properly.