Arlo Pro 4 randomly stops detecting motion

[Lanis01]

I'm beyond frustrated with this, so I'm turning to the community here to hopefully get some answers.

I have an Arlo Pro 4 camera that randomly stops detecting motion. This actually happens to another camera from time to time, but lately it's a specific camera that gets this issue. The issue is usually resolved when I take out the battery and put it back in, but I can't keep doing that becomes it involves getting on a latter to reach this camera. 

Everything about the camera seems like it works just fine. The wifi connection is good, the battery is charged and connected to a solar panel, and I've tried restarting as well as turning off the camera from the app - nothing fixes this issue outside of taking the battery out. I can view the live feed and manually record, but the motion detection just stops without warning. 

This camera is aimed at a street, but my activity zones cover the sidewalk only. I occasionally get random "motion alerts" that are not triggered by any actual motion, and I only have smart notifications set to trigger for people. Those alerts come back to back within a second, always, and it's always in pairs of ten second records.

Anyone experience this with their arlo pro 4s? Any advice or help anyone can give me?

[jguerdat]

A good first try to fix this would be to remove and re-onboard the camera.

[MattJay]

Same issue here. Two camera. One looking at front door works fine. One looking at road randomly stops recording. Works live but doesn’t motion detect and record. Pain to keep on boarding it. Happens every few weeks.

[MCali]

I have my post up on this very same issue.  So far I have 3 cameras in the bundle I purchased with a base station.  Camera number 1 and 2 are at the same spot, more details are in my post which you can view.

Camera one stopped recording twice in a period of 3 weeks.  

You do not need to remove the battery, just go into the app and click the camera settings and you can turn it off there and just reboot it.  

The first time I turned it on and off it worked fine.  Second time it stopped recording I had to turn it on and off about 4 times before it went back to regular function.  After that it was doing great, but for some odd reason the battery on the unit for camera died really fast.  So I had to swap it out, as I do not want the area I am recording to remain without surveillance. 

Camera two is at the same location as camera 1 and it hasn't stopped recording events and the battery on this unit seems like it should last a solid 4 months without needing a charge even though it's extremely high activity area.  So far 4 weeks without having any recording drops/stops.

I saw suggestion that there maybe some type of interference, however based on these findings I would have to rule those out as a possible factor.  We have yet to see if it will run it's full battery life without any recording interruptions but so far so good

[StephenB]

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@MCali wrote:

I saw suggestion that there maybe some type of interference, however based on these findings I would have to rule those out as a possible factor.  We have yet to see if it will run it's full battery life without any recording interruptions but so far so good

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I think the definitive test would be to put camera 1 back in that spot, and see if the problem starts up again.  If it does, then that points to the camera.

Does camera 1 work properly in another location?

[MCali]

Never tried camera 1 at another location.  As mentioned the battery on it drained really fast, so now camera 2 is at that location.  It is doing fine now, 4 weeks in.  However I have another issue with this camera and capturing full motions.

One thing leads to another o.o

We will find out when camera 1 goes back up, but looks like this is going to be about 3 months down the line

[StephenB]

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@MCali wrote:

However I have another issue with this camera and capturing full motions.

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Camera 2?

What is the issue?  Have you tried anything to resolve it?

[Lanis01]

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@MCali wrote:

You do not need to remove the battery, just go into the app and click the camera settings and you can turn it off there and just reboot it.  

 I know how to turn off the camera from the settings, but I don't see how to reboot it. Unless you mean restart? I can't do that while the camera is turned off, restarting the camera alone doesn't do anything. I've always had to just go out and manually pop the battery out and pop it back in. That's the only fix that seems to work.

[walters4060]

Did you find a fix for this issue? I’ve been having the same issue with two cameras. 

[MCali]

No sir, just temporarily set up camera 1 which was having a battery issue, but not an issue with detection up at another location and it is detecting full motions of any activity from start to stop unlike camera 2.

Will be probably putting up camera 1 at its original location probably in a week or two to see if there are any issues.

The app does have that section for setting up the camera which has a detection area, not a set up zone. I checked camera 2 at this location and everything seems to be visually in sight of the detection zone.

It’s like blacked out at the top 1/4 portion of camera as not being part of the detection zone I guess. Just noticed when I set this additional location up how it works, but as stated going back to the camera with a detecting issue everything is below that line. Not sure what’s going on

Kind of worried what camera 3 has in store -_-

[Kschleic]

I have 7 cameras and have this same issue with 1 camera.  It loses the motion detection.  Every 3 to 4 weeks, I have to unplug then plug it back in and everything is fine.  I can’t believe Arlo cannot fix this error or have it fixed when I do a restart.  

[jguerdat]

Swap cameras around to see if it's the camera or location.

[Kschleic]

Logically, the location should not matter.  It is a camera that is pointed down a driveway detecting cars on entry.  The day it stop detecting motion, it had recorded several vehicles then stopped working.  This happens about once a month or so.  I have to unplug then replug and it starts working again.  Turning it off or restarts through app does not work. To me, this is a software bug.  It should reset (unplug and replug) when you do the restart on the camera just like a computer!!!

[StephenB]

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@Kschleic wrote:

Logically, the location should not matter.

Even with that premise, it would still confirm that its the camera.  I also suggest swapping before contacting support.

[Arlouser112922]

I have 5 pro 4 cameras and a front door camera all wire free and no base station.  I’m paying the $9.99/month for cloud recording of all cameras.

Periodically these cameras  stop recording and have to be restarted.  That fixes it but I have to do this on a weekly basis to at least one or two.  I don’t notice it is a problem until I start seeing huge gaps in recordings from the Library.

this is absolutely absurd.  I paid a lot of money for this system and and should not have to keep restarting cameras.

oh, and all of the cameras are wired for power so nothing is on battery.

I have AT&T 1G fiber internet and the WiFi router is a Nokia BGW320..  the WiFi is capable of 1G and it is centrally located on a top shelf in my house to get the best range possible to all cameras.  I didn’t have any issues getting them setup the first time and the signal is good.

Again, as happened in every camera and the front door bell at one time or another.  😕

[jguerdat]

That points to a connection issue due to signal strength and/or interference. Bring a camera closer to your router for testing to see if that helps.

[Arlouser112922]

Thanks but I don’t have a very big house (2000 sq ft) so distance shouldn’t be an issue.  One of the cameras I had to reset recently is very close maybe 30 feet across the patio and only a glass window between it and my Wifi router.  In this photo I am standing inside the window next to the Wi-Fi router there is nothing blocking the signal.  Only thing I have is rubber skins on all the cameras for protection.  Surely that isn't blocking the signal?

 

[Arlouser112922]

Also, if it is due to "signal loss", should it not resume recording by itself as soon as the camera regains signal?

[StephenB]

When the problem happens, then can you livestream the camera? Or does that time out?

[Arlouser112922]

yea can still livestream, just the cloud recordings have stopped.  I have to restart the camera to restore cloud-recording.  very odd.

[StephenB]

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@Arlouser112922 wrote:

yea can still livestream, just the cloud recordings have stopped.  I have to restart the camera to restore cloud-recording.  very odd.

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When the recordings stop, are you still getting notifications?  Or do they stop too?

[Arlouser112922]

That is a good question.  I believe the Notifications stop.   This camera was the one I had to restart last time 2 days ago.  Stopped recording at 12:07am, I noticed it the next day at 1:02pm and restarted it and the recording resumed.    The notifications on my phone don’t go back that far so I’ll look at this next time it happen..

2nd pic shows all my cameras and they all have a strong WIFI signal

[Arlouser112922]

Well…that didn’t take long.  

Here we see that Camera 2 stopped recording after 6:19pm, this was during the time that my Internet went down for a minute and then came back up. There should have been several recordings between 6:19 and 8:26 when I walked out the front door, but Camera 2 did not reconnect and resume recording on motion by itself.

is this by design?  Would appreciate a response from Arlo Tech Support.  Thanks.

[Arlouser112922]

So this is in fact what is happening:    All of my cameras (except the front door cam) stopped recording to the cloud because my internet dropped for a few seconds.  (This time It was actually due to me moving the fiber cable at the wall Jack because it was in the floor).

live stream works, but no cameras are recording and no notifications.  I now have to restart every camera to get recording on motion to resume.  

[StephenB]

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@Arlouser112922 wrote:

Would appreciate a response from Arlo Tech Support.  Thanks.

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This is a user-to-user forum.  I think it would be good to contact Arlo support on this.  (FWIW, the cameras are supposed to reconnect, so this is not as-designed behavior).

You do that using the app - go into the support area, and select a camera that has a subscription (paid or trial).  Then scroll down to the contact section and you will see a phone option.  Don't google for a phone number - that will lead to a scam support site.

I'm also tagging the mods ( @JamesC and @ShayneS ) in case they want to follow up.