Arlo Pro3 Local Storage access intermittent & troublesome

[jbongardino]

Using a 2 TB hard drive I set up local storage and port forwarding.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  I have this same experience whether inside outside of my local home network.  Sometimes when I access "settings" it displays a message that indicates I can activate local storage by attaching a USB device....in other words, the Smart Hub doesn't see the hard drive.  I had 2 separate instances where the ports I set in port forwarding were erased.  Other times it seems to work, but never longer then a couple of days before I experience one of these issues.

In ready other posts or online reviews I understand the local storage capability was a long time coming and mediocre at best.  Arlo either needs to fix this issue or provide a way to access the library remotely without forcing its customer to pay a monthly fee which is a capability other systems provide for free.  IMO, a system without remote access to history is of little value.

[jguerdat]

It may be the hard drive that's the issue, especially if powered from the USB bus. I much prefer using a thumb drive for this and many other reasons.

[jbongardino]

Thanks, for your suggestion.  I have thumb drives so I will try one of those.

[jbongardino]

Update - I replaced the Seagate hard disk drive with a 32GB thumb drive.  This did not fix the issue.  Sometimes I can access local storage, other times I can't and I get a message that the Arlo team is working on the issue - "try again".  Local storage access is intermittent.  At times the ports numbers on the port forwarding screen appear, other times they are blank.  Same thing with the "status field" on the Hub setting screen...sometimes it displays "ready" and other times it displays "not ready"  I am using the latest version of the app and firmware.

[jguerdat]

How is it that you can't access local storage? Is the display offering it (no Cloud/local storage name selection at the top of the library) or that you select it and can't get there? For the former, I've found that force stopping the app or refreshing the screen brings it back. For the latter, I've had no issues so don't have workarounds or solutions.

Since you apparently have port forwarding active, does it make a difference if you turn that off?

[jbongardino]

Hi Guru - the condition(s) that make this tricky is that the issue is intermittent.  Sometimes the app displays a Cloud/"local storage" drop down option, sometimes it doesn't.  I had at least 2 occasions where the port forward settings were erased and had to be re-established.  Sometimes I get a "ready" status on the Port Forwarding screen and sometimes I get "not available".  I am on phone waiting for Arlo support now.  Other than this issue I like the system, so I hope we can resolve this...if not I am bringing the system back to Costco.

Thanks for your assistance

[StephenB]

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@jbongardino wrote:

  Sometimes the app displays a Cloud/"local storage" drop down option, sometimes it doesn't. 

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I've seen this also.

[michaelkenward]

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@jbongardino wrote:

Sometimes the app displays a Cloud/"local storage" drop down option, sometimes it doesn't. 

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This happens here all the time. Local storage access is hopeless on different Android devices.

Even when the dropdown works, the app is temperamental.

Sometimes it crashes.  Sometimes it just throws an odd error:

Error obtaining the library

Hardly a reliable tool.