Arlo Cameras constantly showing as offline

[CristianJP]

Hi,

I'm starting to get really frustrated by this.  My Arlo cameras and base unit are constantly showing offline or just hanging on the getting status message. This is across multiple Android devices (phone & tablet). 

Im sat here trying to check a live view but at the point of giving up.  The other day,  I came home for lunch and it took 20 minutes to turn the cameras off.  Likewise,  another 10 minutes to turn them back on. It's quite amusing watching the video capture of me playing with my phone trying to disarm the system!

I really like these cameras,  but this issue is making it unusable. 

Any suggestions? 

Thanks

[Daisyduck]

I'm having the same problem

[GaWd]

I believe I'm seeing this as well. 

Batteries are in the 90% range on both cameras, yet each of my cameras has gone offline for no reason in the last 2 weeks. The base station is on FW 1.8.8.0_11528 and the cameras are on 1.2.10342.

Anyways, I had to log in and press the live video button a few times to get the camera connected again. 

Note thast I noticed this only because in each case, I failed to get triggered video from one camera or the other because of this.

[jescott3]

My 4 Arlo wireless cameras stopped responding this morning, with a black overlay on the screen and a message about getting data. There was no message about cameras being offline. Nine hours later, I found this thread and decided that eitherr the Netgear Arlo network was down or that I had to turn my base station off and back on. I cycled the base station and pressed the camera link button a lot of times when the "camera offline" message finally showed up. My network then came back up and I can access and control all 4 cameras again. It would be nice to know if the problem was on my end or in the Netgear Arlo network/server.

[GaWd]

I've har Arlo for about a year, now. I've never had this happen outside of the last 2 weeks. 

Also, even when my network has issues, I've not seen Arlo cameras go offline. They should still communicate over the local network to the base station. Only a complete local outage would prevent the cameras from doing their job.

I will note another new behavior, however (and it's the whole reason I came here today): My Arlo emails are being delayed 1-2 hours. It's not one camera over the other, it's not time or time periods causing the delay. The delay appears to be on the backend-if I look at my devices in the portal, I see one clip at 1457 and another at 1611, but the other camera doesn't have either. When one triggers, the other should record.

So I'll monitor that, and I'm not really sure where to open a new thread for email issues...but it's also something that *never* happened before the last 2 weeks. It's either a server capacity/server issue, or it's something else on Netgear's end causing the asynchronicity.

[CristianJP]

I should add that although the messages I get are either "getting status" or "offline".  The system is online and working.

I am experiencing some problems with one camera (infra red not working) but it appears to records and trigger okay. 

Emails have been fine,  so I'd suggest if users experience problems with delayed emails they should open a separate thread,  but it sounds like an isp issue for that and not Arlo. 

[GaWd]

As I mentioned, it is definitely not an 'ISP issue". Videos aren't being processed in a timely fashion by Arlo, and emails are delayed because of that.

Probably a capacity problem.

I didn't realize your issue didn't affect the actual video capability of your cameras like mine.

[jguerdat]

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CristianJP wrote:

Emails have been fine,  so I'd suggest if users experience problems with delayed emails they should open a separate thread,  but it sounds like an isp issue for that and not Arlo. 

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Actually, opening a number of cases (each affected user should open one) would be more effective.  The forums can help but backend issues simply can't be addressed here.  Use the Contact Support link at the bottom here.

[TKNT81]

Hi cristianJP,

Arlo is aware of this bug, however it already takes some time to fix it.
I have been in contact with the support case team twice and they say they are working on a solution.
If you open a new support case, maybe things (solution / app fix) will go faster as Arlo sees how many users are affected.

See my post:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Arlo/Arlo-Android-App-2-3-2-16308-GETTING-STATUS-BUG/td-p/1252846

Arlo please fix this bug soon, as many users have this issue.
I think it already takes too long!

[JamesC]

There is a new Android app update available (2.4.0) for download through the Play Store. Please download the latest update and let me know if you still experience this issue.

JamesC

[jescott3]

That's good for Android users, but all my devices are Apple iOS. When will an app update for iPhone/iPad be available? And what version of Adobe Flash Player is required to enable live updates when using macOS 10.12 Sierra with Safari 10.1? No matter how many times I enable the latest Flash Player for Arlo on my current model 27" iMac in Safari preferences > Security > Plug-in Settings, I can't access a live feed from my cameras.

Jim Scott

[JamesC]

jescott3,

Consider trying a different browser, such as Chrome. Do you see the same behavior?

JamesC

[1Steve]

Same issue, "We're sorry, Arlo is currently unavailable.  Please try again later."

Case #28393393 has been open for over a week now, without resolve.  I have tried resetting the system, resetting the cameras, replacing my android ap, power off the modem, reset the modem, power off the base station, reset the base station, reset the cameras, open ports 80, 123, and 443.

Today I had my ISP replace my modem/router.  I hit repeat on all of the above steps.... What a joke!!   Arlo remains a total waste of time and an expensive paperweight.  I figure I've got over a 100 hours of troubleshooting into this mess. At $30/hour X 100 hours = $3000 plus the cost of my system at another grand. 

Who can I send  my $4K bill?  Seriously, I'm thinking I need compensation for my time and a total refund on my system.

[CristianJP · Accepted solution]

I'm no longer getting this issue.  This is either down to removing the batteries in one of my cams or the recent update to the Android app. 

Ive never tried logging in via a PC,  so can't comment on the isp point that has been raised. 

[jescott3]

Hello JamesC,

For some reason — perhaps you tweaked something — the Apple macOS Safari browser access to Arlo’s “Live” views worked the first time I tried it today. The second time I tried it using Safari, a few hours later, all four cameras timed out or would not connect. I rebooted it and tried it again a few minutes ago, and all 4 cameras showed live views. Live views show up in about 8 seconds. Opera Developer browser works too, without making any adjustments to preferences or Flash Player. However, it takes Opera around 40 seconds to display a live view. With the Firefox browser — no changes made — one camera timed out, the next one couldn’t make a server connection, and the other two produced live views in 7 seconds. I got essentially the same result on the second Firefox test, except that the first two cameras showed the little view icons at the bottom of black screens.

All 4 cameras show max signal strength bars and have more than 50% battery life left.

I don’t use Chrome, and never will. Google’s already made enough money off of my browser history and my use of its search engine. I use Safari and DuckDuckGo, with Opera Developer and Firefox as fallback browsers for the rare instance when Safari doesn’t work. I also try to stay away from Adobe Flash Player, for all the usual reasons, and am glad that more and more websites are making it possible to use HTML5 for the same reasons Apple does. I hope Netgear makes the same switch to a more modern player without all the downsides of Adobe’s — or at least makes it possible for viewers to use either Flash Player or HTML5.

Although it’s not in your wheelhouse, I’d also like to see a less clunky and more modern iOS app for Netgear’s Orbi. One was sort of promised when Orbi launched last year, but many months later, the same old ‘90s-type app, which is maddeningly slow, is still around. I decided to go with the Orbi and two satellites instead of a true mesh type wifi network in my home, and am very happy that I did. However, the app is quite dated and cumbersome.

Jim Scott