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Arlo-help2
Apprentice
Apprentice

4 of my Arlo pro 5 cameras started having distorted videos today. (Lines up and down making up the image) a similar thing happened in Dec 2025 and lasted until the end of Jan 2016 then cleared up on its own.  I believe that it was a firmware issue that was cleared up when the firmware was updated.  Maybe the firmware was updated again overnight (overnight Weds, March 4th) that has caused this issue.  The cameras were all working great yesterday.  Anyone else experienced this issue?   IMG_3846.jpeg

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StephenB
Guru Guru
Guru

@Arlo-help2 wrote:

4 of my Arlo pro 5 cameras started having distorted videos today. (Lines up and down making up the image) a similar thing happened in Dec 2025 and lasted until the end of Jan 2016 then cleared up on its own.  I believe that it was a firmware issue that was cleared up when the firmware was updated.  Maybe the firmware was updated again overnight (overnight Weds, March 4th) that has caused this issue.  The cameras were all working great yesterday.  Anyone else experienced this issue?   


I've seen it (but not on a Pro 5s).

 

This is a result of a corrupted video encoding.  There are two causes

  1. packet loss on the network path between the camera and the Arlo cloud (or local storage if you are using that)
  2. a compression hardware issue in the camera(s).

Did you try removing/reinserting the battery in one of the cameras, and see if that resolves it?

Arlo-help2
Apprentice
Apprentice

I have not removed the battery.  I did restart the base station.  I have 10 cameras and it affecting 4 of them.  On those 4 it’s doing the distorted video and the live view just spins.  The cameras do activate when motion is detected …it’s just distorted.  They are all getting good WiFi signal. Doing the same thing that they did for about a month from Dec to the end of January.  Back then I did take the battery out of one and it didn’t help.  I ended up replacing one of those cameras with a new camera ….but the new camera is one of the 4 cameras with distorted videos.  

ShayneS
Arlo Moderator
Arlo Moderator

Hi @Arlo-help2 

 

If you bring one of these devices closer to your base station, does the image quality improve? Is this occurring on wifi and mobile data or the web portal? 

Arlo-help2
Apprentice
Apprentice

This was happening on the app on WiFi BUT it seems that they have all cleared up this afternoon.  I can live view and there are no vertical distortion when motion is triggered or live view is done.  So just a glitch that seems to have resolved itself…..but why do these cameras go wacky like this?   My inaction is usually the best action and it usually clears on its own but I still don’t understand why this happens when other cameras are working normally. 

StephenB
Guru Guru
Guru

@Arlo-help2 wrote:

My inaction is usually the best action and it usually clears on its own but I still don’t understand why this happens when other cameras are working normally. 


Most likely explanation is that something is impairing the wifi signal to the cameras.  That could be either be interference or something blocking the path between the wifi sender (base or router) and the cameras.

 

It's possible that the wifi signal is marginal - It'd be useful to measure the wifi speed at the camera locations using your phone (either Ookla or Cloudflare's speed tests).  The upload speed is that matters here, as well as packet loss.