Confused about how to update firmware “Update Base station” apparently does nothing

[sward6368]

When logging in today received notification firmware update required, "Lets start with base station". After saying update base station it comes back in a few minutes with error Base_station_error_ 4403 the status on all camers is back to firmware update needed, lets start with base station. 1) I see no posting in the release notes for this base station firmware 2) what is the update correcting 3) what did Arlo break again so the firmware will not update and how should I correct this as now my cameras are useless pending the update being applied Thanks

[Dannybear]

Maybe the update message should have said maybe you should power cycle the base for this update to progress. But that would suggest that the arlo auto update system is flawed.

[MyPSP]

Yes, it did the update finally after I manually press the button to reboot the base station. It seems to me that auto update wasn’t doing the job it supposes to be!

[dwaust]

Thanks to mikepwagner for the power cycle answer.  That worked for me ... took about 10 minutes.  I do not run ARLO over PC so can't address that part of it.

[Mced]

Hi, my current base station firmware is 1.12.2.2_2754. I get a message that a firmware update is required but after I click I on it, nothing is updated. And it keeps asking me to update again. And the live view is no longer working because of the message. I tried restarting the base station, no luck.

[billcawley]

I’m having the same issue - hopefully someone has a solution. I have 2 base stations at different locations and one is requiring the update and the other says no update available - they both are on the 2754 firmware. The one that is having the issue is the one I don’t have easy access to. It does get unplugged and plugged back in once a day (on a timer) so that didn’t fix it. Any ideas?

[dsiu2902]

2754 is the latest firmware for VMB4000, if you don't have VMB4000, then I suggest you to contact the support to see they can roll back for you.

If your base is VMB4000, you can try to do factory reset (hard reset) by pushing a small hole in the back by at least 15 seconds, by do this, you will lost all the device and the connections, you have to start all over again.

This may solve your problem.   

[billcawley]

Not sure what changed, the problem has been going on for two days, and now it has resolved on its own. Both of my base stations are VMB4000r3 - they are both working correctly on 2754 and showing no updates available. Guess I’m all good for now.

[Elessar18]

Me too. Same situation. Started yesterday (Friday 6/7/19) I get exactly the same error message.
What the heck is going on?

[Morten-Kroejby]

Same problem, cant Update, my arlo Pro base. But my 3 arlo Pro 2 stations has no problem Update, i dont know if that is a quensident because to my knowlage the basestations should be the same.

The Update fix and issue with timezone reset automaticly.

[westsidecr]

The latest camera firmware update rolled out a few days ago has screwed up the basestation.  It won't come online!  This is not the first time Arlo has rolled out firmware updates that screw things up.

I've tried rebooting the base station, rebooting my home router, and resetting the base station.  Nothing has worked since this update. 

[Morten-Kroejby]

I updated from Internet explore, it seams to work better than updating from the IOS app...

[Mced]

It magically works again by itself without prompting for updates even though nothing has been updated. I guess it's a bug somewhere that continuously trigger for an update required. All good for now and hope it will remain stable.

[Addyhash]

Same issue over weekend... As usual while I'm away and need it the most. This would have to be the most unreliable paperweight I ever bought. Now I gettimg base station off line

[westsidecr]

Update. I synced each camera with the base and all is well. Frustrating that when new firmware is pushed they don’t provide instructions.

If I was an older person or disabled this would be horrible as for us anyway the cameras are exterior so up high.

[Timby911]

Ialso having problems updating my cameras. Every time I hit the update camera, I then hit yes for the update and it goes back to asking me to update the cameras again. 

[mikepwagner]

Here is what I did that finally worked - the fact that it finally worked doesn’t mean that everything I did was necessary. Some of the this is probably what software engineers call “superstitious” behavior.

I watched the green lights on the base system when I hit the update button. When I hit the button, the leftmost green led - the power led - would flicker for a while and then return to stead on. I did this four or five times, as soon as the light returned to steady on, the update message would re-appear and I would try to update again.

Eventually, the leftmost led and the center led - the network led - both went off for a noticeable pause (maybe a second or two) at the same time. I think that may have been important, but but that is very likley superstition.

Then I power cycled the base - turned the base off, counted to 10, turned the base back on. My base took a long time to reboot - which I took as a good sign, and I think that it rebooted twice, which I took as a very good sign. When it came back up, it was running the new version.

Here is my grand hypothesis - which is almost certainly wrong, but speculation is fun.

1) The update button on the app sends a “give me the new firmware package” request to the server. If the server is busy, it drops the request on the floor - that’s not unusual  behavior. That also may not be bad behavior - I think the idea is that the software is supposed to auto-install between 3:00 am and 5:00 am every day, so if a manual update request is missed, it’s not a big deal.

2) When the server is not busy, it initiates a transfer to the base station, probably a zip or tar file - compressed image of the new software. If that’s a relatively large package, the transfer can take a while. I think the firmware I was installing was a large package, which would explain why the servers were busy and also why I finall saw a pretty long delay - the power and network lights going off for a noticeable time.

3) The base system did not auto-reboot afer the tar or zip file was received, because the old firmware had an issue of some kind - probably one that the new firmware was fixing. Auto reboot is finicky -  I know absolutely nothing about Arlo software, but I have written auto reboot code. If you are going to progrmmatically reboot a system, you wan to be very sure that the system will come back up after it’s rebooted. A single support call may well cost more than Arlo’s margin on these boxes.

At any rate, to ensure what we used to call a “graceful” reboot, the system will often do a “health check” before rebooting, and refuse to reboot unless the health check passes. This is not bad behavior - even though the cameras said an update was necessary, the fundamental part of the system - motion detection and video capture was working just fine. As a software engineer, you never want to reboot a working system and having it not come back - the slang is “bricking” the system.

The alternative hypothesis here is that the firmware included an OS update, and the something in the OS was preventing the reboot. OS instals can be - and should be - incredibly finicky.

4) When I physically powered on and off the system, that bypassed the health check or fixed the issue that was failing the health check - if the issue preventing the auto reboot was memory related, power cycling would clear the memory issue. The long reboots and additional reboot would argue for a new OS install, and probably a pretty big tar package.

At any rate, I know nothing about Arlo’s software - this all pure speculation. I would guess that they are running Liniux or some FreeBSD variant (BSD has the best performing network stack, and this is a network focused application).

But speculation is more in the absence of facts. 🙂

[J0rdanP]

Had the same issue this morning. Reading the first couple of these made me decide to do the first step in any hardware issue call to care...

  Step 1:  Power unit off for 10 seconds then restart. 

Like everyone else who has done this it worked.  So, if you’re this far down the bread, just reboot the controller. 

And message to to the guy who is 1,000 miles from his house. Put the controller on a wemo switch so you can toggle the power remotely. Seems like the obvious thing to do anyway. 

[MrA2u1]

Thanks for the WEMO idea. I actually have a few already in the house to control lights. I will get another one next time I'm there.

[deskpro590]

Thank you.  This worked for me.  This was very frustrating.

[digdug79]

Can't get the base station or camera's to do the firmware update.

[JJS68]

thanks mikepwagner

the power cycle worked for me too, I thought that was what the restart did, guess not

[jguerdat]

Base has to be done first. Have you tried rebooting the base? What have you tried?

[DrewHall1954]

Our system is dead also.  Offline...  4 hour drive to fix!  Was this an emergency update?

[jtannenba]

This is stupid.  Why doesn't the base station have a restart option.  What happens when you are 2000 mi away and the base decides to update?  You lose the entire system since it won't do anything till the update is done.  Very poor design, not what I expected with a Netgear product.

[silverado44]

Well maybe if you look at your phone app under base station there is a option to reboot/restart base.