Most USB Thumb Drives no longer work - "Your USB device failed to format"

[TheJET]

I have been successfully using the Arlo Pro VMB4000 Base Station with five Arlo Pro 2 VMC4030P cameras.

Since acquiring this system, I had been equally successful in using brand name USB thumb drives (like Sandisk, PNY, etc) with storage up to 256Gb. Then suddenly all most all of the USB thumb drives I had successfully used in the past with this base station would no longer work.

I want to say that this storage problem surfaced immediately following a firmware upgrade to 1.21.1.0_4302_9611cf3, but I can't say that with certainty.

I am now successfully using a single Sandisk Cruzer 16Gb drive but want to go back to the larger Sandisk 256Gb drive.

Whenever I insert into the USB port of this base station each and every thumb drive that had worked successfully in the past and attempt to format that inserted USB thumb drive, a message appears at the top of the Arlo App screen which states "Your USB device failed to format".

What is interesting though is if remove each and every USB thumb drive that has worked in in the base station the past and acheived the Arlo app error message ("Your USB device failed to format") and insert that thumb drive into my Windows 10 Pro notebook computer, I am able to not only format that thumb drive but also successfully move and store files onto that thumb drive. My conclusion is that there isn't a problem with any of these thumb drives but rather an issue with the Arlo Pro VMB4000 Base Station.

I don't understand why all of these thumb drives which once worked in the past on the Pro VMB4000 Base Station no longer work.

So my questions are:
     (1) Has anyone experienced this same thumb drive storage problem?

       (2) If so, were you able to resolve this problem so that you can once again use your thumb drives successfully? 

   (3) And, if you were successful in resolving this problem, what specifically did you do so that your thumb drives could be used again?

I would appreciate the Community's insight.

Thanks.