outage today? Base was offline for over an hour

[pc2k17]

Today I was expecting an expensive delivery, an item over $2000. The fedex guy rings my arlo doorbell while I'm at work. I answer but I get no video and the audio is cutting in and out, couldn't speak to the guy to let him know the garage door was open and he could put the delivery in there.

I then tried to pull up the camera live feed to see where he was and all of a sudden arlo app says all 9 of my cameras and the base is offline. I check my SmartThings, alarm system, internet router, Reolink cameras, all online and functioning normal, but alro says all cameras and base are offline. I close the app and reopen, cameras show good, try to live view, all offline again. I reboot phone (new samsung S24), try again, look good then all offline. I try to restart the base thru the app, I think it did restart, try again, all offline. About an hour and 10 minutes later magically all cameras and base now online. Since we couldn't hear each other and I couldn't live view the delivery driver left and did not complete the delivery.

I live in a rural area so I don't get people at my door. In the past year only 4 times was the door bell pressed and every time it did not work. I can't ever have a conversation and the video is iffy at best. The doorbell has one wall between it and the arlo base and my router and is only 7 feet away from the doorbell. If I test it myself while connected to the same wifi it works fine, but over 4G it does not work at all. Every time I needed the system to absolutely work it fails miserably. It's great at picking up raccoons and woodchucks, but in an must work scenario it always fails.

Was there an outage?

If not why were all my cameras and base offline for over an hour? (right at a critical time of course)

Why does the arlo doorbell simply not work when my phone is on 4G?

Why can I only live view one camera, then when I stop it and try to live view another it just says connecting forever and never connects, I have to close the app and try again?

Why does the app get worse with each update?

And it's not my internet, I have 400 up and 400 down connection, have 58 home automation devices, cameras from another company, cloud connected alarm system, and they all function perfectly and were not offline when arlo was.

[jguerdat]

You can always check status.arlo.com to see if there's an outage. However, since you state audio was cutting in and out, it would seem that some sort of connection was occurring but something was interfering. Of course, any place between your router and the Arlo servers (as well as the servers) could be the issue which would be difficult to determine without experience and effort. 

I don't know why cell service won't work since you're just using the app to interface with the servers. It would seem to be an issue with the cell provider which you'd have to contact them to work through. ANy chance a VPN is in use?

[pc2k17]

There are no reported outages for yesterday. Cell carrier is Verizon. 4g only at home, and I'll be honest not a strong signal, but it works fine. At work in my office on ground floor there is a Verizon repeater about 20 feet away inside the building, on the 5th floor I get 5G. Connection is good all throughout the building.

Home has spectrum internet. Arlo base is connected to router via ethernet cable. All arlo cameras including the doorbell are connected to the arlo base, not to wifi. VPN on my computers, not on the router or modem.

When the offline issue occurred my Reolink cameras were up, smart things was up, alarm system was up, everything was working fine except Arlo. It appears to be a connection issue from the arlo base to the arlo servers. No idea where or what the issue was since everything else was working.

Today FedEx stopped again to attempt delivery. I get a notification from my arlo driveway cam, get a doorbell motion notification, I wait for the doorbell call to come in, and wait, and wait, finally must be 15 seconds later I get the call I answer it takes 15 seconds to answer and connect, delivery guy is already walking away. I asked AI what the average time fedex will wait when pressing a smart doorbell in a rural area, answer was 15-45 seconds. So figure 30 seconds, if arlo can't answer the call in less than that the delivery person walks away. They don't have time to wait around since the routes are very long in my rural area.

Reolinks mobile app is not as good as Arlo's but their computer app is way better and their cameras connect to my NVR. They don't have the preview in the notification like arlo which I really like. I'd switch all the arlo cameras to reolink but I don't want to spend $1300 on 9 new cameras right now.

IDK, maybe I'll try setting up the voicemail feature for the doorbell and tell them to wait longer until I answer.

[jguerdat]

I'm not at all sure that asking AI for answers/suggestions is the best plan. However, the idea that you have that much delay suggests an ISP issue (assuming a good signal at the doorbell, etc. and no interference from other 2.4GHz. devices). What are your measured up/download speeds as well as latency time (ping) as reported by speed test.net while using a computer connected via Ethernet?

In the past, it's been suggested that disconnecting Arlo from services such as SmatThings for testing has helped. Have you tried that?

[pc2k17]

LOL, doesn't Arlo use AI to identify people vs vehicles vs animals.

To find the answer to such an obscure question, AI is the perfect choice. It can scan the internet, the fedex website, forums, news stories, etc and then give a detailed explanation. I didn't post all the info AI gave me but it gave me info about why the times might be what they are. It explained how routes work, how weather is a factor, how location is a factor and a bunch of other info. To gather that info would have taken days of searching. I've been in IT for 20+ years, trust me, I know networks and how to use new technology.

But anyway.....

No interference. The doorbell has just the wall it's mounted on between it and the base and my router. About 7 feet away.

Test results are... and note this is at 7:45 pm, peak internet usage time. Latency is less than 40ms during non-peak times.

374.55 down

339.01 up

Idle latency 15 ms

Down latency 49 ms

Up latency 45 ms

I have not removed Arlo from smart things, but I only use smartthings to turn the cameras on or off via a routine and to notify me when the cameras are turned off. I let the arlo app and system do everything else. I've never even viewed an arlo camera in smartthings. I leave arlo in armed all the time and just turn on/off interior cameras with a smartthings routine.

I'm confident the issue is with arlo. When 9 cameras go offline for 1 hour and 10 minutes, while EVERYTHING else in the house was working fine, and then magically come back online all by themselves.... that's an arlo issue.

[StephenB]

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@pc2k17 wrote:

The doorbell has just the wall it's mounted on between it and the base and my router. About 7 feet away.

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Are the cameras (and doorbell) connected to a smarthub?  Or are they connected directly to your home wifi?

If you do have a smarthub, how close is it to your router?

[pc2k17]

The cameras and doorbell are not connected to the arlo smart hub, they are connected to the old school VMB4000 base. The VMB4000 base is connected to my wifi router via ethernet. The router and base are about 4 feet apart.

Cameras connected to the base are:

4 Arlo Pro

1 Arlo Pro 2

3 Arlo Pro 4

1 doorbell

[StephenB]

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@pc2k17 wrote:

The cameras and doorbell are not connected to the arlo smart hub, they are connected to the old school VMB4000 base. The VMB4000 base is connected to my wifi router via ethernet. The router and base are about 4 feet apart.

Cameras connected to the base are:

4 Arlo Pro

1 Arlo Pro 2

3 Arlo Pro 4

1 doorbell

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You could try restarting the base (and maybe the router while you are at it) and see if that helps.

Although it is a PITA, you could also try connecting the doorbell to your home wifi instead of the hub.

[pc2k17]

I've been in IT support for 20 years, first thing I do is reboot everything, modem, router, base, alarm base, smartthings, extenders, and computers.

Also, I mentioned in the first post that I tried to reboot the arlo base thru the app. When the cameras went offline, as I mentioned, I was not home so I couldn't physically power them off/on, so I used the arlo app. The base appeared to reboot, but it did not help. Cameras came back online all by themselves an hour and 10 minutes later.

I also tried connecting the doorbell to wifi, but it just connects to the base anyway. I finally gave up because it always connected to the base. I suppose I could turn the base off and unhook the enet cable and try to connect the to wifi, don't think I tried that.... but ultimately the issue is not on my end.

I don't understand why when there are problems that arlo never just admits it. I've had arlo since 2017 and there have been several major issues that was on arlo and they never once owned up to it. Remember the database issue in 2018/2019 where people were offline for months... I do.... and arlo never owned up and admitted they messed up. I'm in tech, I understand things go down, things happen, just own up to it and look into fixing these issues. If someone from arlo would just say, ya sorry your cameras went offline, I'll send the info to the engineers and see if they can see what happened, that would be acceptable. But instead arlo wants to blame my equipment. Sad, and terrible customer service. This isn't the first time this has happened either, the last time I called arlo, they put me on hold for a few minutes, did something on their end and the cameras all came back online. That's an arlo issue.

But it's fine, I'll just deal with the issues until I replace all the arlo cameras with Reolink cameras. The Pro's and Pro 2's are old anyway, so I'm sure newer ones would work better, I'm just not willing to sink any more money into arlo, I'll just go all Reolink. Yes I'll lose the preview in the notifications that I really like but Reolink does, people, animals, vehicles too so it's all good.

[ShayneS]

Hi @pc2k17 

Thanks for the feedback on this. I see the base station appears to be 8-9 years old. I wonder if there was a hiccup. Does this always occur with this base station? If you like, I can escalate this for you and have someone from the team reach out to further troubleshoot.

[jguerdat]

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@pc2k17 wrote:

I also tried connecting the doorbell to wifi, but it just connects to the base anyway. I finally gave up because it always connected to the base. I suppose I could turn the base off and unhook the enet cable and try to connect the to wifi, don't think I tried that.... but ultimately the issue is not on my end.

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The normal installation of any Arlo camera defaults to WiFi but may offer to connect to a base or hub. I've never seen any of my devices automatically onboard to my hubs without me selecting that choice.

[StephenB]

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@pc2k17 wrote:

I also tried connecting the doorbell to wifi, but it just connects to the base anyway. I finally gave up because it always connected to the base. 

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What model doorbell do you have?