Arlo|Smart Home Security|Wireless HD Security Cameras
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lpmom
Follower
Follower

There are no recordings in my lib rary anymore. Camera profiles show there are recordings but the library has no recordings.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
ShayneS
Arlo Moderator
Arlo Moderator

Between 10/14/19 11:30PM PT and 10/16/19 01:50 AM PT some Arlo Smart subscribers who utilize the Activity Zones feature noticed video clips were missing from their library. This issue impacted all Arlo Camera models except for Arlo Ultra and Arlo Pro 3.

 

As of 10/16/19 01:50 AM PT this issue is resolved and video recordings now work as previously configured. All Arlo systems are operational.

 

You may always check the status of Arlo systems by visiting: https://status.arlo.com/ . Our team continues to closely monitor our systems to ensure they function as expected.

 

We appreciate your patience and understanding as our team worked to resolve this issue. Please contact Arlo Support should you have any questions. 
 

View solution in original post

422 REPLIES 422
Disappointed33
Guide
Guide

So i see here that MANY MANY users are experiencing the issue with 30 second+ lag on live video/audio.  This obviously makes it useless for communicating with anyone or even seeing anything in real-time.  I also see here that this issue has been around for quite a while now, with netgear's response being to do nothing and keep selling junk.  So, are they going to fix the issue? Or, do I throw this $500 system in the garbage and buy something that works, and become the internet spokesperson for steering people away from making the same mistake that I and countless others have made?  BTW--i have 110MB up and 15MB down, and the cameras are not far away from the base, and everything involved is updated.

AncientGeek
Hero
Hero

@Disappointed33 wrote:

So i see here that MANY MANY users are experiencing the issue with 30 second+ lag on live video/audio.  This obviously makes it useless for communicating with anyone or even seeing anything in real-time.  I also see here that this issue has been around for quite a while now, with netgear's response being to do nothing and keep selling junk.  So, are they going to fix the issue? Or, do I throw this $500 system in the garbage and buy something that works, and become the internet spokesperson for steering people away from making the same mistake that I and countless others have made?  BTW--i have 110MB up and 15MB down, and the cameras are not far away from the base, and everything involved is updated.


30 seconds is completely unacceptable, of course.  I think my lag is typically around 1 or 2 seconds.  I just checked one of my Pro 2 cameras I’m using for travel in the Caribbean...not known for fabulous networks...and I’m hearing a sub-second response when I speak to the camera even down here.

 

What devices and software are you using to connect with the system?

 

Do you have a case open with Arlo customer service?  That might be a good place to start.

Disappointed33
Guide
Guide

It doesnt matter what i used to connect.  i have the Arlo Pro 4 camera system.  My Galaxy S7Edge with a strong 4GLTE signal, my daughter's iPhone 10, my Macbook Pro with a connection of 100+MB up and 15+MB down.  From looking at countless conversations on this site, it appears to have happened with a firmware update sometime around 3/18(i may not be remembering the timeframe correctly).  But, countless people speak of the same issue.  When they contact Arlo support they are told that it is something on their end.  My guess is that as their customer base has grown, their infrastructure has not?  Anyway, I'm just wondering if they will do something about it before i trash this worthless system and make sure others dont make the same mistake i did. There were cheaper options that probably would have performed atleast acceptably.  i have not contacted Arlo support because i dont have the sense of humor to be told that it is on my end when i know that it is not.  Thank you for the response.  i wish i had only a 1-2 second delay.  i live in the country and intended to be able to communicate with people when not home.

AncientGeek
Hero
Hero

@Disappointed33 wrote:

It doesnt matter what i used to connect.  i have the Arlo Pro 4 camera system.  My Galaxy S7Edge with a strong 4GLTE signal, my daughter's iPhone 10, my Macbook Pro with a connection of 100+MB up and 15+MB down.  From looking at countless conversations on this site, it appears to have happened with a firmware update sometime around 3/18(i may not be remembering the timeframe correctly).  But, countless people speak of the same issue.  When they contact Arlo support they are told that it is something on their end.  My guess is that as their customer base has grown, their infrastructure has not?  Anyway, I'm just wondering if they will do something about it before i trash this worthless system and make sure others dont make the same mistake i did. There were cheaper options that probably would have performed atleast acceptably.  i have not contacted Arlo support because i dont have the sense of humor to be told that it is on my end when i know that it is not.  Thank you for the response.  i wish i had only a 1-2 second delay.  i live in the country and intended to be able to communicate with people when not home.


I should clarify that I have a horrible lag in the application start up on our iPads.  There I see 35-45 second delays for sure.  It was actually worse a few weeks ago starting with V2.7.0.  Arlo is working on the startup lag and has committed to fix it.  It takes less than 10 seconds for the app to start on the iPad that I kept loaded with V2.5.5 of the Arlo app.  But even the current app, once it is started up, I can go into Live View and start a microphone conversation (all of which takes a few seconds) and then talk to the camera with a very short lag between my speaking and the audio coming out of the speaker.

 

if you are talking about the time it takes for the application to start up...there is definitely a significant problem there.

Disappointed33
Guide
Guide

No i am talking about lag in the audio and video.  It does take a while to start up.  But, once it does, my wife will go the front porch or one of the other locations and we will attempt to communicate.  The lag is so bad i dont even see her for 30 seconds or more.  It is useless.  It records video and audio OK to be viewed at a later time.  But anything live is worthless.

AncientGeek
Hero
Hero

Ok.  You have some really weird latency problem.  I don’t know why it would be unique to Arlo, but who knows.

 

What do you typically see for latency when doing a speed test?  You could have excellent speeds in both directions, but bad latency.  They are different things.   Do you use a firewall or a router based security product?  Have you done a wireless wire survey to see all of the WiFi access points in your area?  Are their any obvious sources of radio frequency interference?  Motors or other transmission devices nearby?  Even a strong signal could be thwarted by packet corruption due to RFI or packet collisions due to high WiFi traffic on the same or overlapping channels.  Do you have any devices that do a lot of wireless streaming?

dcmccarthy
Star
Star

I experience the same type of lag/delay. Easily into 20-30 seconds for the video to actualy show up first and then very choppy when it actually does.

 

I have no network latency (3ms ping) issues. I've done countless speed tests and I get 260mbs down and 165mbs up. Doesn't matter if I'm trying to view from the same network (phone or laptop) or from LTE or on wifi at work.

 

I have 6 Arlo Pro cameras and a single base. With strong wifi singnal, all cameras exhibit the same behavior. I also have a problem that has gone unsolved for nearly a year whereby my cameras record only 6-8 seconds of motion after detection. 

 

I'm reaching my point of getting rid of this for a $1200 lorex wired system.

 

 

AncientGeek
Hero
Hero

 

I just tried a live view from my Mac using Safari on roughly 2 dozen cameras of mine (and my son's) at six different locations, using a mixture of original Arlo, Arlo Pro, Arlo Pro 2, Arlo Q and Arlo Q Plus on a mixture of original Arlo base station, Arlo Pro base stations and a Netgear MR1100 serving as a base station.  Live View was ready from "click" to running in 9-12 seconds except for my travel Arlo system which took 15 seconds to light up a Live View in the USVIs.  This test was conducted from the USVIs also which are not known for stellar networking...though it was completely rebuilt last year.

 

I tried a similar sample of these devices on my iPhone XS and my 11" iPad Pro both running ios 12.1.4 and Arlo app V2.7.4.  Those resulted in faster times of typically 6 seconds on both iOS devices.

 

HOWEVER...on four of my tests, I did experience Live View startup times of 24 - 35 seconds.  When I repeated those tests they started up in 6 seconds.  I would say those represented about 5% of my tests.  So something certainly slowed things down between the camera locations, Arlo cloud servers and my mobile and notebook devices.  Of course that was a long trip, so who knows where the latency was introduced.  I think all of the locations use Comcast as an ISP except for the USVI location which uses ViYa.  This last location (where I am currently located) currently shows a speed test of 6.5Mb download and 3.0Mb upload.  So my numbers are not unduely influcenced by stellar bandwidth, for sure.

 

Do you use a VPN by any chance?  Who is your ISP?

 

Very odd.

 

 

dcmccarthy
Star
Star

My internet is Bell Fibre (in Canada). No VPN.

Cell phone is Bell LTE, also in Canada.

 

I've tried Firefox, Chrome and Safari on various devices.

Disappointed33
Guide
Guide

ISP is Spectrum, mobile devices are all Verizon.  No VPN.  Question:  How do you know there is no lag when looking at all of these cameras remotely for this test?  Did you have someone stand there and attempt to communicate with you?  If i connect to mine, once it 'loads' it would appear that everything is fine.  i wouldnt know there was a 30 second lag without having my wife walk outside and stand in front of it.  Then i see that she doesnt show up for 30 seconds, and voice doesnt play either direction wihtout the same lag.

 

I just have your basic home wireless nework setup.  Using a Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200 router.  Everything runs nice and quick except these cameras.  Not a tech genius so i dont have answers for some of your questions.

AncientGeek
Hero
Hero

I conducted this test in response to dcmccarthy’s post on the time it takes for Live View to go live.

 

As you said, I can’t tell how long the lag might be for the microphone and speaker without having someone at the remote location on a telephone.

 

I’m not certain if Arlo does anything different between local and remote talking.  I thought they always took the round trip to their cloud servers.  Perhaps they now utilize the local connection when it is available.  

AncientGeek
Hero
Hero

@dcmccarthy wrote:

My internet is Bell Fibre (in Canada). No VPN.

Cell phone is Bell LTE, also in Canada.

 

I've tried Firefox, Chrome and Safari on various devices.


Well, that explains it.  Your video must get held up at Customs.  ;^)

AncientGeek
Hero
Hero

@Disappointed33 wrote:

ISP is Spectrum, mobile devices are all Verizon.  No VPN.  Question:  How do you know there is no lag when looking at all of these cameras remotely for this test?  Did you have someone stand there and attempt to communicate with you?  If i connect to mine, once it 'loads' it would appear that everything is fine.  i wouldnt know there was a 30 second lag without having my wife walk outside and stand in front of it.  Then i see that she doesnt show up for 30 seconds, and voice doesnt play either direction wihtout the same lag.

 

I just have your basic home wireless nework setup.  Using a Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200 router.  Everything runs nice and quick except these cameras.  Not a tech genius so i dont have answers for some of your questions.


Were you in the same house when your wife walked outside or were you remote from the location?  I was able to test the cameras that are at the same location as me.  That was my first test and it was very fast.  Perhaps one second.   A year ago, the lag on a camera in the same home might be 2 or 3 seconds, but at some point, it was much improved.  I don’t know if Arlo started taking advantage of local connections or if the video still makes the round trip to the cloud as I mentioned previously.

Disappointed33
Guide
Guide

Yes, i was in the house when i had my wife go to the porch, etc.  I have a latency of 52ms.  If someone were to ring the doorbell they would be gone by the time Live View even opens, much less the 30 second delay.  I appreciate the responses and advice.  But, what it boils down to is that this $500+ system is worthless for whatever the reason.  I guess it is literally a roll of the dice to purchase one of these Arlo systems.  Maybe it will work for you, maybe it won't.  For me, lesson learned.  I will have to chalk it up as wasted money and inform others about the gamble in purchasing.  Quite an investement for what amounts to some 'dummy' cameras to spread around the property.

turkishburk
Initiate
Initiate

I have experianced the same lag that develops a few seconds into video play and gets worse the longer you stream. When I first got the camera sometime last year it all worked perfectly, then some update happened and now live streatmign is worthless. The app loads fine, the camera begins streaming and is fine for about 10 seconds, then the audio and video start chopping/stuttering and the video gets further and further behind real time the longer you watch.

 

This happens regardless of what I stream from (iphone, ipad, fire stick, web interface) and regardless of weather I am on my home netowork, cell service, or wifi away from home. I have lived in two homes during this time, the second has WAY better internet service yet the problem persists. All motion detected recoded video is fine, but live stream is just about worthless.

 

Any one found any solutions?

ShayneS
Arlo Moderator
Arlo Moderator

Hi @turkishburk

 

Have you tried rebooting the base station and removing the cameras from settings > my devices & re-sync?

PeterSierra
Star
Star
Yes, same exact problem.
However, I also have a wired or at least wired to A/C camera (signal to base is wireless) and an Arlo battery powered wireless camera (no audio). These two stream fine as did the three Arlo Pros until about 10 months ago.
My last attempt to ascertain the problem was bringing the Arlo Pro into the house and setting it next to the base station to remove any doubts with regard to distance or signal strength and the problem persisted.
This is a known issue. The interesting part is that the cameras are out of warranty (not that they would be able to fix the problem by replacing) but there is no warranty on the subscription or streaming service as this was sold as a free service or an included benefit or feature that the user receives in exchange for purchasing the Arlo devices.. This needs to work, in perpetuity or Netgear is at risk for/from lawsuits.
Since the individual cameras don’t cost enough to justify a single users initiating a lawsuit it is more likely that this would become a class action suit.
You would think Netgear would realize that they were at risk and fix the problem especially because the problem didn’t exist a year ago.
Instead they have tech support waste everybody’s time (including tech support) rebooting systems and checking their internet speeds.
Not to mention the bad press and horrible reviews.
At this point I’ll happily sign on for the class action suit; I hate tech corp arrogance.

P
M_Mae
Tutor
Tutor

Is there any solution to the live stream lag? 

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

What's your upload speed as measured by speedtest.net?

PeterSierra
Star
Star
1.07 upload speed.
Still no solution.
Arlo and Arlo Q fo not buffer.
Just swapped a brand new camera in. It took 40 seconds to catch up. In other words, I’m standing in front of it, I walk away and 40 seconds later the “Live” view shows me walk away.
If I record live I’ve recorded 45 seconds but end up with 4 seconds of video. Been working with Tier 2 tech support. They don’t seem interested in all of the other reports of the same thing.
migman_2001
Luminary
Luminary

1.07 Mbps upload?  Seriously?

You need about 1-2 Mbps available per camera.  This is in addition to anything else you may have on your network.

What are you running on?  Satellite, DSL, cable, etc.  

Anyway you can get your upload speed increased?

 

 

 

 

PeterSierra
Star
Star
Yes seriously.
It worked fine for the first year that I had the cameras and it still works fine for the Arlo and the Arlo q.
After the firmware update one year ago this started happening to me and hundreds of others.
And no I don’t have any options to speed it up.
M_Mae
Tutor
Tutor

Yes, I think a lot of the previous comments mentioned that they have the same lag problem despite their upload speed. Some commented that they have fast upload speed but still experiencing the same thing. Mine easily had a lag of 20-30 seconds for the video to actually show up first. Live stream is also the same. The person is atlready at my door and the live feed is still showing that they are across the road...........

 

PS: Do people have issues with the 2 way audio when communicating via the app? The sound coming out from the camera is so faint that it could barely be heard. Is there a way to increase the volume? Everything is already set at max but still the same issue. This only happens if it's done via the app. Using desktop is perfectly fine. The sound coming out is then loud and clear. Am I the only one? 

AncientGeek
Hero
Hero

@M_Mae wrote:

Yes, I think a lot of the previous comments mentioned that they have the same lag problem despite their upload speed. Some commented that they have fast upload speed but still experiencing the same thing. Mine easily had a lag of 20-30 seconds for the video to actually show up first. Live stream is also the same. The person is atlready at my door and the live feed is still showing that they are across the road...........

 

PS: Do people have issues with the 2 way audio when communicating via the app? The sound coming out from the camera is so faint that it could barely be heard. Is there a way to increase the volume? Everything is already set at max but still the same issue. This only happens if it's done via the app. Using desktop is perfectly fine. The sound coming out is then loud and clear. Am I the only one? 


Do you have more than one mobile device?  It would be interesting to see if the two way audio issue is related to the microphone on your mobile device.