VMB4000 no longer connects to the internet

[docdoc75]

I chose the Arlo Pro "location" as there is no Base Station option.  This VMB4000 was part of a kit with a few Arlo Pro cameras that I bought many years ago.  I don't really use the Arlo Pros anymore and have since purchased a few Arlo Essential Spotlight cameras a 2 or 3 years ago.

On or around 6/28/2023 my VMB4000 base station stopped sending me alerts for the cameras connected to it.  I didn't really realize it for a few days but that's based on last recordings in my library for cameras on that base station.  I have tried many things to resolve the issue but none have worked.  I power cycled the base station, I've replaced the ethernet cable, I've power cycled my home router, and I did a factory reset.  After doing the factory reset, I am unable to get the Arlo app to add it back to the app.  When I go through the adding process it gives me the pictures to connect ethernet, connect power, and then on the next screen it starts scanning.  After several minutes it says it can't find the station.  I have tried the factory reset process several times all with the same result.

Right now the left light is green and the middle and right lights are amber signifying no connection to Arlo servers and no attached cameras.  If I go to wireless on my cell phone I see a ARLO_VMB_########## device but I don't know how to connect to it.  I'm assuming the Arlo app would make that attempt but it's not.

In digging around many community articles nothing seems to match this issue other than to do what I did above.  I also found some articles that had IP addresses supposedly for Arlo servers but I cannot ping those from my network or using online tools so I don't know how accurate those IPs were.

I also saw that there was a firmware update released for the VMB4000 on 6/25/2023.  I don't believe I saw any notice in the Arlo app nor did I trigger a firmware update.  Does the base station do it automatically and possibly broke my base station?

I have an active subscription so I don't think it's subscription related.

Any thoughts?

P.S. I know the Arlo Essential Spotlight cameras I have can connect directly to Wi-Fi, so I shouldn't need the base station, but when I have tried that in the past it works for a day or two and then they reset themselves and I have to keep reconnecting them to Wi-Fi.  The only thing they've steadily connected with is the base station.

[jguerdat]

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@docdoc75 wrote:

Right now the left light is green and the middle and right lights are amber signifying no connection to Arlo servers and no attached cameras.  If I go to wireless on my cell phone I see a ARLO_VMB_########## device but I don't know how to connect to it.  I'm assuming the Arlo app would make that attempt but it's not.

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The middle (Internet) LED being amber means the base is connected to your router but not any further to the servers. That could mean the router has a security setting that changed blocking access to arlo.com but could also be an ISP issue. By any chance is a VPN in use?

[docdoc75]

I'm not aware of anything changing on my network.  There's my router and it's connected to AT&T's modem.  It was working then it stopped.  There's no VPN in use.  You mentioned blocking arlo.com but I can access the website, log into My Arlo, and my phone's app can access Arlo's systems all from within my network.  It just appears to be the base station that cannot.

I don't know what IP or DNS name(s) the base station is trying to connect so I can try to ping or trace route to the destination to see if there is a issue along the path.  I would need that information if I were to try and contact my ISP about the issue if I thought it was them.

What I still find strange is that the app won't let me add the base station.  Does the base station need to successfully connect to Arlo's servers before it will allow itself to be added to the app?

[jguerdat · Accepted solution]

You can use traceroute or ping to arlo.com which will change at various times since there's multiple DNS entries to various servers. The fact that you're here pretty much means it's not an ISP blockage but the forums aren't the same as the cloud servers.

It's certainly possible that it's a faulty base. A test you could try would be to unplug the router from the modem, turn the modem off and plug the base directly into the modem to see if the Internet LED turns green. That would prove that it is or isn't a router problem. Turn the modem off again and plug the router back in to get back to normal.

[StephenB]

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@jguerdat wrote:

It's certainly possible that it's a faulty base. A test you could try would be to unplug the router from the modem, turn the modem off and plug the base directly into the modem to see if the Internet LED turns green. That would prove that it is or isn't a router problem. Turn the modem off again and plug the router back in to get back to normal.

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@docdoc75 - do you have a PC (or other device) that connects with ethernet?

If you do, then I suggest testing the router LAN port and the ethernet cable by connecting the cable to the PC (and of course the router) instead of the base.  Then see if you can reach the internet.

Sometimes ethernet cables can fail, and sometimes the router LAN ports fail.  The test above will confirm whether that is the problem (or not).

You can also look at the attached device list in your router, and see if the base is listed there.

[docdoc75]

Per your suggestion, which I was a bit lazy to do, I plugged the base station into a LAN port on the AT&T device and I got a green light to the Internet.  So something is going on with my main wireless router.  Although it's online now I was not able to add it back to my account.  It mentioned connecting my phone to a 2.4ghz SSID that's on the same network as the base station but I don't have a way to force connect to the 2.4ghz range....  unless I turn off the 5ghz radio.  I'll have to investigate further after I figure out why my main router is being problematic.

Regardless, we know the base station connects so I just have to resolve the router issue now.  Thanks for the help.

[docdoc75]

I was about to factory reset my wireless router on the web GUI when I discovered, buried at the bottom of one of the screens, was an option to list blocked devices that weren't connected.  I've never seen that before.  Sure enough the base station was in that list (several times which seemed strange).  I'm not quite sure how that happened since I know I never blocked it.  I removed it from that list and it works.  I had to factory reset it another time to allow it to add back to my account but I think I'm good now.

Nothing like a random network gremlin to make something more complicated than it needed to be.