Can't set up the Base Station (VMB5000)

[jdarksun]

Got the Ultra 2 (2 Camera Kit), as well as additional cameras and solar panels. Cannot for the life of me figure out how to set this system up. For reference, I had a four camera system (the original Essentials line) that worked perfectly a few years ago. This new system is... very unfriendly.

• Spent a staggering amount of time trying to get the Base Station set up on my Eero mesh wifi. Plugged the Base Station in, saw it on the network, yay! Tried to connect with the app. Nothing.
• Searched the knowledge base, found out that mesh wifi wasn't supported (...what), and that I would need to take down my entire network, connect the Base Station to the primary (connected to internet) node, disable the 5ghz band, and try again.
• This did not work.
• Next I tried the Xfinity router (XB8). Plugged the Base Station in (ethernet first, then power), waited for the light to go blue, confirmed it was connected to the router in the Xfinity app, fired up the Arlo app, search for device.
• This did not work.
• Split the three WiFi bands the XB8 supports (2.4ghz, 5ghz, 6ghz), reconnected, tried again.
• This did not work.
• Downgraded to WPA2 on the 2.4ghz network, rinse repeat.
• This did not work.

The Arlo app isn't giving me any more suggestions, and I'm out of ideas. Doesn't work from my phone on the 2.4ghz wifi, doesn't work from a laptop on the 2.4ghz wifi, doesn't work from my pc wired directly to the router.

I'm out of ideas. Any suggestions before I send ~$1k of cameras and support equipment back to Arlo with a strongly worded hand-written note?

[StephenB]

Of course the base connects with ethernet, so it shouldn't matter what wifi you are using.

Have you tried adding the base using a PC (my.arlo.com).  Ideally connect the PC with ethernet.

[jdarksun]

> Of course the base connects with ethernet, so it shouldn't matter what wifi you are using.

Huh, really? When I ran "troubleshooting" from the phone app, it was complaining about not being on 2.4ghz band + WPA3 encryption.

> Have you tried adding the base using a PC (my.arlo.com).  Ideally connect the PC with ethernet.

Yes; "Your Base Station could not be discovered.", "Make sure both the Power and Internet Globe icons are lit green."

I know it's connected to the network, because I can ping its ip and it responds. There's no response from ports 80 or 443; I can try a port scan, but without knowing if there's an internal management tool that's sorta pointless. I could try packet sniffing; knowing what it's trying to do would help narrow down the problem. 🤔 ...but also, shouldn't there be more setup documentation / troubleshooting steps?

It's broadcasting two wifi signals, but I wasn't able to find any password info with the included documentation (...if a "download our app to set up" card can be called documentation) so I'm not sure how to connect to either of them directly. 

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

Note the phone does need to be connected to your home wifi, and it cannot be connected to a VPN during the install.

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@jdarksun wrote:

I know it's connected to the network, because I can ping its ip and it responds. There's no response from ports 80 or 443; I can try a port scan, but without knowing if there's an internal management tool that's sorta pointless. I could try packet sniffing; knowing what it's trying to do would help narrow down the problem. 🤔 

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The base only makes outbound connections to the Arlo Cloud, so it is almost never about the ports.  Corporate firewalls, or other proxies/packet filters on the path can interfere, but that almost never happens on a home network.

(If you set up direct access to local storage later on, then you'll find that app does make an inbound connection to the base when you access those recordings. That is why I said "outbound connections to the Arlo Cloud" above).

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@jdarksun wrote:

It's broadcasting two wifi signals, but I wasn't able to find any password info with the included documentation (...if a "download our app to set up" card can be called documentation) so I'm not sure how to connect to either of them directly. 

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You don't.  Those networks are completely closed, and only used to connect the cameras to the base.

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@jdarksun wrote:

> Of course the base connects with ethernet, so it shouldn't matter what wifi you are using.

Huh, really? When I ran "troubleshooting" from the phone app, it was complaining about not being on 2.4ghz band + WPA3 encryption.

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I haven't seen that message, and it is odd that it would complain about WPA3, since until very recently the cameras that can connect directly to home WiFi used WPA2. 

I've haven't taken any traces, but my understanding is that the system is using a broadcast protocol to find the base.  That will fail if the router doesn't forward the broadcast packets from wifi->ethernet and ethernet->wifi.  That is why I suggested trying to install on a PC that is connected to LAN port.

One thing that does matter is the number of DNS servers you are using.   Several posters have found that it fails if the client sees more than two DNS servers.  Note what matters is the number of servers seen by clients.  Some routers only present the router IP in DHCP, others present the servers configured in the router. You can check this simply enough using ipconfig on a PC.

[jdarksun]

Had some time this morning, so I called support... and they figured it out in < 10 minutes 😳

> ...it cannot be connected to a VPN during the install.

Yup. This was it. As soon as I disabled the VPN on my phone, it found the BaseStation and setting up everything after that was straightforward. 😂

Thank you for the correct suggestion - I'll be sure to flag this as "Solved" so the next person with this issue can discover the solution easily.

Also, thank you for your time and effort - I've seen your solutions on several of these Troubleshooting questions. You're helping a lot of people, and we all appreciate it. Thank you again!