Base Station lights keep blinking

[Kammfam]

For the last 2 days, every time I sit down at desk to access my cameras from my PC, I notice that the base station light is blinking orange. Last night, it would blink for a while and then go back to blue, then blink for a while again. I thought maybe it was a firmware update based on the info on this page, even though I didn't see a firmware update listed for yesterday's date- https://kb.arlo.com/000039100/What-do-the-LEDs-on-my-Arlo-SmartHub-or-base-station-mean.

This morning, it was just blinking orange, so I did the restart option from the website, and it didn't seem to do anything. I unplugged the base station and plugged it back in, and it kept blinking. About 5 minutes later, it was back to blue. I just got home and sat down, and it's blinking orange again.

My cameras all seem to be working fine, though. Every time I see it blinking, I try Live View on a couple cameras, and it works. Anyone have an idea why my base station keeps blinking???

[JamesC]

Kammfam,

How far away from the SmartHub are your cameras and what does the signal strength icon show? The flashing amber LED could indicate a range issue with the camera(s).

JamesC

[Kammfam]

All of my cameras show one or two bars of signal strength. They are between 15' and 100' from my base station. Nothing has changed with the distance of the cameras, and this just started yesterday.

[Kammfam]

And this afternoon, the light is solid blue again after blinking orange all morning. I haven't changed anything, and my camera signal levels are exactly the same as they were this morning.

[JamesC]

Kammfam,

It sounds like there is an intermittent connectivity issue between the camera and the SmartHub.

If your cameras continue to work fine, you may not need to make any changes. You might consider moving the SmartHub closer to the camera that is the furthest away as a step to further isolate the issue. If moving the SmartHub closer isn't an option, try elevating the hub. Sometimes elevating is enough to improve the signal strength to alleviate issues like this.

JamesC

[Kammfam]

This is really frustrating. Light has been blue all day, and all cameras signals are great. Then all of a sudden, it starts blinking orange, and I go log into the website which tells me that my base station is offline. 10 seconds later, the light is blue again. Now I'm worried that I keep missing motion (addressed in another thread) because my base station is randomly going offline every so often. I had the same issue with my Pro2 base station going offline randomly, and I have no idea why. My internet connection is fine, and I'm usually sitting here at my computer using the internet when my base station goes offline, so it's obviously not an internet issue. 😞

[TomMac]

Had similar issue, had to move the Ultra base farther away from my router ( it was 6-7 ft, moved to 15-17 ft )

after all good, no blinking....  prob interference with 5ghz side of router

[Kammfam]

Interesting. If I can figure out somewhere else to put this base station, I might have to try that.

[synth_wedge]

I have the same problem,  but only after installing a new Netgear Mesh system. All cameras seem to be on line and responsive. I am unable at this point to move the base station away from the router to see if that works. 

[NA4M]

Our system has started showing this problem in the last week or so.   Prior the system has worked fine since installed in mid-June 2019.

All of our Ultra camera's signal strength indicators have shown 2 bars for long periods of time but then for no obvious reason recently the signal indicators are reduced to 1 red bar on 1-2 of the Ultra cameras.  Then the SmartHub LED starts blinking orange or red.  

The camera batteries are fully charged 95+%.  I swapped cameras but the problem remains with the same locations. The camera's having the problem are within 50-60 ft of SmartHub and all have worked fine since installation until the last several days.

Tried re-syncing cameras and SmartHub but no help.   

Yesterday I did a POR/unplugged/replugged the SmartHub power cable.  That seemed to help for a period of time - 12-18 hrs all cameras had 2 bars - but this morning the problem is back.  2 cameras that had solid 2 bars signal strengh since SmartHub POR now this morning are down to 1 red bar.  SmartHub LED blinking yellow then red.  Can still connect manually to all cameras including ones with 1 red strength indicator.  

Absolutey no change in either the cameras or SmartHub location/environment.   

There was a SmartHub VMB5000r4 firmware upate 29 July 2019 and our SmartHub has this update.  The problem seems to have begun after this update.  Coincidence or perhaps the SmartHub update broke something.  The update is the only known thing that has changed in our system.

[NA4M]

Wanted to make correction - our SmartHub is blinking amber - not red.   

Also- checked the cameras and no LED blinking on them.

[Wolfram74]

I just got the same problem. Light blinking Amber than solid blue than Amber again ! Just since 2 weeks.

[NA4M]

Well - after a couple weeks with no problems with the base LED blinking - the issue returned couple days ago.

Same 2 cameras as before - they consistenly have 2 bars of signal strength during the time of no blinking - but went down to one red dot and the base unit is blinking amber.  Batteries adequately charged and no changes in cameras or base unit locations.   System seems to be working otherwise.

[NA4M]

Just notiiced there was another VMB 5000 SmartHub firmware update on Aug 19th.  Checked our hub and it has this newest hub firmware.  As before - a hub firmware update was released and automagically installed not long before our  SmartHub LED starting blinking amber along with reduced camera signal strength indicators to red.  The 2 recent hub updates have been the only known changes to our system and environment prior to this issue.

[Topiwala]

Base station LED has started to blink orange. I can still access cameras and everything seems to operate normally. But the amber LED continually blinks.

[RB4]

Same issue as others base station blinks orange, cameras are working.

[Jonsey1958]

Same problem with mine, started a few days ago. Blinking amber and no change from me re positioning of hub or camers. However even with the flashing amber light all seems to work fine. Tried all the resets ect but still flashing. Keep us posted if anyone has a fix.

[NetgearNetowkri]

Same problem with the blinking amber light on the Smarthub base station.  I've just set up my system less than a week ago and all was working fine and then just recently the constant amber light.  It was on and off for awhile and then just went to constant blinking.  I went through all the resets to no avail.  I'll be changing the location of the Smarthub, further away from the router, to see if that makes a difference but from all those that are having this problem, it looks like Arlo needs to do an internal fix.  Has anyone heard anything directly from Arlo?

[LV78]

Hi

Everything had been working fine for 2 months ( base + 2 ultra cameras) and now for about 3 weeks base has been blinking orange all the time and cameras are offline. 

Tryed reset including online. Nothing worked. 

There must be a problem with latest firmware. 

[StephenB]

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@LV78 wrote:

There must be a problem with latest firmware. 

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Or a base station failure.  I suggest contacting support. https://www.arlo.com/en-us/support/contact.aspx

[NetgearNetowkri]

This issue has been resolved!  I chated with Arlo over the internet and they were very helpful in assisting me to get this corrected.  It apparently was an internet congestion problem caused by all the activity my router is expected to do.  The suggestion that the agent made was to change my Router channels to get better reception.  With that in mind, this is what I did:  My Arlo agent made an excellent observation: She suggested that my internet traffic maybe congested. After some thought, I logged into my router to take a look at the Chanel's that she suggested changing. Instead of changing the chanel's right away, I set my Nighthawk Router to "Smart Connect". As a result, the Nighthawk router makes the necessary changes to correct any congestion problem. The Nighthawk 3 band router does well to organize traffic as needed. All is working well now! Thanks to Arlo for heading me in the right direction!  Oh, she also suggested that I change the location of the Smarthub (which I was going to do anyway) but as it turned out, the congestion issue was the true issue.  Moving the Smarthub didn't make any additional conenction pluses, it just allowed me better access to the SD card.  All along, I was thinking that the issue had to do with Arlo firmware although I was proven wrong once the internet congestion cleared.  I hope this post helps others who are experiencing similar Amber blinking light issues!

[Ewf2001]

I have the same problem. Orange blinking led but camera's seem to work fine.

[NetgearNetowkri]

This issue has been resolved for me!  I chated with Arlo over the internet and they were very helpful in assisting me to get this corrected.  It apparently was an internet congestion problem caused by all the activity my router is expected to do.  The suggestion that the agent made was to change my Router channels to get better reception.  With that in mind, this is what I did:  My Arlo agent made an excellent observation: She suggested that my internet traffic maybe congested. After some thought, I logged into my router to take a look at the Chanel's that she suggested changing. Instead of changing the chanel's right away, I set my Nighthawk Router to "Smart Connect". As a result, the Nighthawk router makes the necessary changes to correct any congestion problem. The Nighthawk 3 band router does well to organize traffic as needed. All is working well now! Thanks to Arlo for heading me in the right direction!  Oh, she also suggested that I change the location of the Smarthub (which I was going to do anyway) but as it turned out, the congestion issue was the true issue.  Moving the Smarthub didn't make any additional conenction pluses, it just allowed me better access to the SD card.  All along, I was thinking that the issue had to do with Arlo firmware although I was proven wrong once the internet congestion cleared.  I hope this post helps others who are experiencing similar Amber blinking light issues!

[Kammfam]

After being fine for a while, I'm suddenly having this issue again. My base station has been blinking amber for 3 days now, and my Ultras suddenly have only 1 bar in the connection strength. I wish the engineers would stop trying to fix things and making them worse. My cameras were all fine with 2 bars, and now half of them only have 1 bar, and my base station just blinks all day long. When this started a few days ago, it was just one camera that had poor signal, so I pulled the battery and reinstalled it, and then it was fine. Later in the day, it lost signal again, and then the next day, all my Ultras had less signal.

[RB4]

Same here! Problems once again with lights blinking and went from full bars to 1 or two bars on some cameras