VMB5000 offline had to factory reset to fix

[jscunningham]

There appears to have been a firmware update within the last 18ish hours that has once again taken my system offline. This is the third time in recent months that this has happened to me and it seems the only fix is a factory reset on both of my base stations and all 18 cameras. This is beyond annoying and I’m ready to toss the whole thing in the trash. I’m tired of going up and down ladders to each and every camera to do a reset because of some complete incompetence on the part of the arlo developers. Stop forcing updates that break systems. You’re obviously not checking to see if they work before pushing them out.  You’ve already replaced a couple cameras because you bricked them with bad updates but they’re all getting close to being out of warranty and I’m guessing you won’t replace faulty products even though it’s because of issues you are causing with these updates. 

[GrantLeffler]

Open a Case Number and document everything!

On Monday I’m filling a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and I’d advise everyone who’s having issues with Arlo to do the same.

Going back to April 1st none of my 8 Cameras have recored for 1 second for 23 days out of 33 days.  That’s over 3 weeks.  Arlo knows.  Arlo can’t fix it.  Arlo won’t send me any new equipment even though I’m within their 1 year warranty period.  

I would also highly suggest you open up a Twitter Account and start to Question their CEO.  His name is Matthew McRae.  

Ask him why their Firmware Sucks and has so many problems.  Ask him why their cameras and base stations have so many Offline Errors.  Ask him why their customers have to go days, weeks and even months without working cameras and base stations.  Ask him why his Technical Team is so incompetent that even a simple update is a hassle to get from them.  Ask him why their customers have to go to a Community Forum to get information and answers instead of their Technical Team.  Ask him which Competitor Cameras he’s actually using for his own home, family and business.  

The important thing to do when asking him a question.  Take a picture or video of your question and then see if it gets answered, ignored or deleted.  Most likely it will get deleted and he’ll remove you from His Account but having video or picture proof he deleted your question is pretty much priceless in my opinion.  It also adds to the documentation.  I believe he’s fully aware of the POS that is Arlo and he knows it’s just a matter time until the ship sinks.

Arlo isn’t here to help, they’re here to take your money.  In the real world I would have received new equipment after the first week I was having Problems and it would have been expedited shipping at their cost.  This would allow Arlo to test my system and hopefully prevent further occurrences which impact their customers.  Arlo isn't interested in any of that, that would mean there's Accountability at Arlo which there is not.   

If Arlo all of a sudden closed tomorrow would you be surprised.  I wouldn’t.  Money over Matters seems to be their Motto.  Warn your Family, Friends, Neighbors and Co-workers, ask their CEO the “Tough Questions”, Document everything and get those complaints in to the Better Business Bureau ASAP.    

[n1976jmk]

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[tc81]

Anyone managed to get this up and running? i'm now 6 days in with no resolution in sight. Factory resets don't even work for me. Does James C have an update from the programmers? When can we expect a fix?

[Jankovichs]

Cameras keep drooping offline. ... and James are here to get info from us "testing monkeys" that gets forced untested updates !
In meantime i see all those adds in facebook how safe and reliable is arlo system.... makes me sick !

[tc81]

TBH i would be willing to give them a pass if their service was better. It feels like everyone at Arlo is off on vacation. it can't take more than 2 mins to let your customers know you're still trying to fix an issue (or not) or give them a vague idea of an ETA. Basic customer service which they seem to be lacking.

[michaelkenward]

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@tc81 wrote:

It feels like everyone at Arlo is off on vacation. it can't take more than 2 mins to let your customers know you're still trying to fix an issue (or not) or give them a vague idea of an ETA. Basic customer service which they seem to be lacking.

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The news may not have reached your neck of the woods, but the rest of the world is in turmoil.

I am amazed that Arlo has not slapped a massive banner at the top of this place warning about coronavirus and the disruption to services. Practically every site I visit invites me to don a face mask and warns that support is a bit ropey at the moment.

Call centres are short staffed, with many people working from homes, where phone lines are dodgy and overloaded.

Throw in the massive increase in the number of people working from home, and trying to work out what this technology stuff us up to, and it seems reasonable to expect normal service to be disrupted.

[dcfox1]

Not sure where Tc81 lives but cant he  believe everyone  is on vacation.

[tc81]

And perhaps I would consider that if they hadn’t rolled out a piece of firmware bang in the middle of a pandemic. I supposed in your magical world they are staffed enough to roll out firmware but not staffed enough to give us updates on a fix? That’s amazing logic you’ve got right there. Perhaps you should get a job at arlo

[michaelkenward]

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@dcfox1 wrote:

Not sure where Tc81 lives but cant he  believe everyone  is on vacation.

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Certainly some inhabitants of Trumpland prefer conspiracy theories over testable facts.

It really is surprising that Arlo hasn't flagged this up. Even my wine merchant warns me to expect trouble.

Over on the Netgear forum there is a massive orange banner at the top of the Community.

[JamesC]

The development team is actively investigating these reports. If you're still experiencing this issue, please contact the Arlo Support Team to further investigate and open a ticket. You will find several options for contacting support in the provided link.

JamesC

[dcfox1]

Yea. I mistyped that meant I cant believe  he believes everyone  is on vacation. 

[tc81]

The DoD releases the videos with the UFO’s and Arlo goes down in the same week. Coincidence? I think not.

Now about this wine merchant - can he fix a home security camera system?

[michaelkenward]

@tc81 wrote:
The DoD releases the videos with the UFO’s and Arlo goes down in the same week. Coincidence? I think not.
 

I hadn't thought of that.

Same week as Trump telling us that the Chinese government genetically engineered the coronavirus.

This gets worse.

[LandJS]

JamesC why can't they simply roll back the firmware while they investigate, we both know that investigation could be a month or more.  Even Microsoft has had the ability to roll back at the click of a button for along long time.

[jscunningham]

Still no resolution to the firmware issues, at least not for me. It seems that even the live stream is taking an abnormally long time to load and often fails as well. Anyone else notice this?

[tc81]

Finally managed to factory reset mine and the camera's are working. Definitely have slowness with some of my live streams. Also noticed that if i switch up the motion sensitivity to 100 from the default 80, the camera goes offline and I have to factory reset it. Additionally, there are gaps in my recordings, even though there is movement in the room. 

[Johnny290]

Count Me In as having problems with the system after their latest firmware update. They did the firmware update so they can get their floodlight system up and running. Not the first time I've seen them do this and wreck the system

[LandJS]

definitely a issue with going live times at least 4 to 5 times longer than before the update and yes everytime something new is added this happens.

[Johnny290]

That's right when they came out with Arlo doorbell they completely ruin the system and now they came out with the floodlight and once again they completely ruined the system very unreliable

[Johnny290]

I would never recommend Arlo to anybody and would never buy again

[trinatron]

For me, the question is why is the recent firmware update only taking offline certain systems?

We are all running the latest software, so the only difference can either be hardware or settings.

To all those experiencing this offline issue, what are the hardware versions of your Ultra cameras and SmartHub?

[RaeMacSyd]

I would luv to help you with this info trinatron, but if you read my post on page 2, I cannot get out of any firmware update loop to even find that information out and I have tried a lot of different things and repeated them many times.  If my Ultra Hub (VMB5000r4) was not forced by the Arlo App to check for and download an update EVERYTIME, I'm sure that I would have been able to recover my system and it would be back and working.  If the front line support person, from my first chat session, hadn't insisted on me removing the Ultra Hub from my Arlo Account, I probably would have been able to figure out a way to recover most of my system as well, but that was one of the many wrong things that was in the script that their staff use. 

I still have heard NOTHING from Arlo and I have not had a working video security system in over 9 days now.  I have contacted their front line support staff via the Chat system, first on the 27th and subsequently two more times since to try and get my system fixed.   The front line support staff are still fobbing people with this problem off.  If the Arlo engineers can push out a bad firmware update in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, they should be able to fix it as well.  They have lost another customer in me and I will be warning anyone who ask about Arlo and their software engineers.

[RaeMacSyd]

WELL FORK ME... (and yes, given the hours I've spent trying to fix my Ultra Hub over the last 9 days, I am entitled to more than a few cleaned up swear words)... I have finally got my Ultra Hub back and the system is back to normal, working and have successfully added the new Ultra camera I purchased.  Given that I was intending to call the local Arlo office and start the refund process for my Arlo Ultra System that was bricked by this bad firmware update, I thought I'd take the micro SD card out and copy the videos that had been recorded on it onto my PC.  Took it out and then thought, wonder if that will make a difference to the firmware update completing properly.  Given all the time I had wasted so far, another 5 mins wasn't going to hurt.  Powered up the Ultra Hub without the ethernet cable connected so that I could reset it, reset it and then re-connected the ethernet cable and let it do it's thing. Surprise surprise, no change from what I had seen MANY MANY times before.  Solid orange light, ethernet connection maintained, then orange and blue lights alternating, ethernet connection still maintained and then solid orange light again, ethernet connection dropped.  Unplugged it, so it wouldn't keep repeating this sequence over and over again as it had always done before and then thought, I'll just watch it complete the sequence one more time while the videos are copying onto my PC.  Plugged it back in, walked away and went to my PC to start copying the micro SD card.  The videos weren't copying properly to my PC so spend a good 10 mins trying to get the videos to start copying properly before I went back to look at the Ultra Hub and low and behold...  the light on the Hub was solid blue (nothing new) but unbelievably the ethernet connection was being maintained.  Went to the Arlo App on my phone and connected the Hub to my account via the app as I had done many many times before in the past 9 days as well.  Once the Hub was connected, as always, the dreaded mandatory firmware update check started.  Well unbelievably, instead of crashing out on the firmware update as it has done every other single time in the past 9 days, the check completed with no firmware update required and all was good.  I could continue with completing the setup and adding all my Ultra Cameras. 

So if you still have a Ultra Hub that is bricked by the firmware update released on the 27th of April and you have a micro SD card in its slot, take it out and see if the Hub will then successfully complete the firmware update.  Can't guarantee that is what is causing this firmware update problem, especially as it didn't work the first time I tried it, but my Ultra Hub now shows that the firmware installed is "1.16.1.3_510_1a608c1" which is the one that was released on the 27th and caused my Ultra Hub to brick since it tried to update it then.

[jscunningham]

That's great that you're getting it back online. Unfortunately I don't use an SD card so that's not my issue.

One base is bricked. the other is online will all cameras connected but no motion detection or recordings  at all from any of them.

Waiting less patiently for a fix.

[LandJS]

michaelkenward, your insulting people as to their awareness of the corvid situation would carry more weight if this hadn't also happened when they made the break with Arlo and updated things, if the same thing didn't happen when they added the doorbell, if the same thing didn't happen when they added pro 3, get the picture.