VMB 4000 not locally recording all cameras

[artandnankaufma]

I have a VMB 4000 that has two Pro 4 cameras, 2 ultra 2 cameras, and 4 arlo pro cameras.  All worked fine and recorded everything locally for years.  I did have a free subscription from one of our purchases and then paid it monthly.  I recently cancelled the subscription and since that time only the Arlo pro cameras will record.  I get notifications that there is motion and can see the picture on my app, but am unable to see the recordings from the Pro 4 or Ultra cameras.  The Arlo pro cameras record to the USB and are accessible to the app or my computer in the library with no issue.  The others are simply not available.  What setting am I missing or what do I need to do to reset it so they will all record locally?

[StephenB]

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@artandnankaufma wrote:

I have a VMB 4000 that has two Pro 4 cameras, 2 ultra 2 cameras, and 4 arlo pro cameras.  All worked fine and recorded everything locally for years.  I did have a free subscription from one of our purchases and then paid it monthly.  I recently cancelled the subscription and since that time only the Arlo pro cameras will record.  I get notifications that there is motion and can see the picture on my app, but am unable to see the recordings from the Pro 4 or Ultra cameras. 

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This is expected behavior with your base.  The VMB4000 supports local recording but has no support for playback.

All the recordings you see in the app are coming from the Arlo Cloud, not the USB stick in the base.  You see them for the Pro cameras because those cameras were sold with 7 days of free cloud recording, and Arlo continues to provide that.  But the Pro 4 and Ultra cameras were not sold with that feature, and require a subscription to get any cloud storage.

The ONLY way to see the recordings on the USB stick is to eject it from the app, and connect it to a PC.  If you do that, you likely will see recordings from the Pro 4 and Ultra cameras.

Options are to 

1. resubscribe
2. purchase a VMB4540 or VMB5000 smarthub, and move the cameras to it.  Then use the direct access to local storage feature of those bases.

More info is here:

• https://kb.arlo.com/000062337/What-is-Direct-Storage-Access-and-how-do-I-use-it

There are several limitations with direct access to local storage:

1. recordings are only available in the app (not my.arlo.com)
2. recordings are only available in the primary account (not friend accounts)
3. you cannot make manual recordings or take snapshots
4. no thumbnails - all videos need to be downloaded to your phone to view anything
5. remote access requires router setting changes that many find difficult (and which won't work with some internet service providers).

There is also a bug with remote access on iPhones and iPads at the moment.  The port forwarding method doesn't work with those devices.  That's been an issue since early June - no idea when Arlo will fix it.