Arlo Pro 2 Camera Kit VMS4230 shows Offline on Arlo iPhone App but Online via Safari browser?

[Gimby]

This seems like an App issue more than a camera or base station issue.  I have two different "Arlo Pro2 Camera Sets with Base Station" (VMS4230) that I bought back in 2019.  They are set up in different locations in different states.  All of this equipment operates indoors in a temperature controlled setting and everything worked perfectly until 3 weeks ago.  I then noticed both locations showed up as "OFFLINE" on the Arlo iPhone App "Mode' page.  Oddly though, the cameras were still reachable via the Arlo and *appeared* to be operating normally.  What was left unclear was whether the motion detection and event reporting was working as usual.  Fortunately, I was able to visit one of those locations this weekend and confirmed that, yes, both of the cameras and the base station are working just fine.  To my happy surprise, both cameras also detected motion when I first entered the space and the iPhone Arlo app notified me immediately of my entry, as usual.

Despite the persistent "OFFLINE" reporting via the Arlo iPhone app, I discovered that accessing this equipment set via Safari web browser showed the correct "Online" status of the equipment.  So if you relied on the just the web browser, everything is shown to be working perfectly, and that is accurate.  If you rely on just the Arlo iPhone App, you are led to believe there is a problem.

I deleted the Arlo app from my iPhone and reinstalled it but this did not change anything.

I removed power from the Base Station and pulled the batteries from both cameras, then powered everything back up again, but no change -- the Arlo app is still reporting incorrectly that the system is offline.

I have not been to the second location yet but will be there soon.  Since the reporting of "Offline" status started simultaneously at both locations, I would bet it is working just fine like the equipment set I got to inspect this weekend. 

Any thoughts?  Thanks and cheers in advance!

[Queenladyk]

Good morning. We had a winter storm here so I decided to wait until it passes for me to move the cameras.  But on a whim after someone asked about it I unplugged the base station for a bit (I actually forgot about it) and then plugged it back in to follow the instructions to remove and re add and all of my cameras were back! So not sure what happened but that fixed my issue and was a lot less hassle. My husband can also see them! Hooray 🎉. Thanks all!

[Melissa_B]

Hi Brooke, did you find a resolution to this issue?  I am having the same issue as everyone else and cannot get my cameras to connect to the base station even though it goes through all the syncing process and appears to have synced successfully. I am

operating on an iPhone 15 and updating the iOS to 18.1.1. Thanks!

[Camily · Accepted solution]

The problem I reported on post 1 of this thread has now resolved itself.  Here's a summary in case it helps anyone else.  

Last week I travelled to one of two remote locations (both in different cities) where the Arlo App on iPhone showed both systems as "Offline" even though (1) both showed up as "Online" via the Safari browser and (2) both systems continued to detect motion and post videos as usual.  Once there, I unplugged the Base Station as I had during a prior visit to see if that might resolve the issue.  I did that without first checking to confirm that it still showed as Offline on the Arlo App.  Once it powered back up, I discovered to my surprise that yes, it now showed as Online via the Arlo App.  Ditto for checking via Safari web browser.

The second surprise was that the second remote city where the system showed as Offline also showed up as Online via the Arlo App and was now working normally.  Obviously no power down or anything else happened there.  It was just back.

The only thing that changed on my end that I can identify is that the iPhone I use is now running iOS 18.1.1.  Back when this problem first became visible for me, I was running 17.7.1.  Maybe that was the fix or maybe Arlo's team has done something on their back end.  Either way, this problem is now resolved on our Arlo equipment and Apple devices.

[Camily]

Here's something I just noticed -- my username was changed from Gimby to Camily at some point during the life of this thread.  Sorry for any confusion that caused but I didn't do that.  In fact, I don't think an Arlo Community member can change their username since, as far as I can tell so far, there's no way for me to change it back.  @BrookeN  I'd be grateful if you could take a look at this!  

[Camily]

Please ignore, simple answer, unknown to me we had two Arlo Community accounts!  🫣

[BrookeN]

@Camily  this sounds like something I would do as well. Lol. Are you still seeing this same behavior or are you still needing some assistance? 

[Camily]

@BrookeN Hey Brooke, thanks for asking, our Arlo App is now fully functional on all devices!  I'd love to know whether Apple fixed something on their back end with 18.1.1 or whether Arlo did something to tweak the app, but either way we are 100%.  Thanks and cheers!