Base station repeatedly goes offline and goes back online later but keeps repeating

[888Steve]

Hi,

Im quite new to Arlo. I was sold an older setup with a house purchase recently.

It’s the older cameras (5 cameras) plus a non video doorbell and chime and netgear vmb3000 base. It seems it doesn’t work too well with my WiFi/router setup.

I have a Huawei B535 router which is a 4G mobile broadband router and is on the UK Three mobile network.

I have the Netgear VMB3000 base station wired in to one of the routers Ethernet ports.

everything works fine apart from every few minutes (difficult to say but between every 2-10 mins) the base station drops offline and the second and third led’s go amber/flash amber. It reconnects itself and half a minute later it’s all good again.

I have the Arlo app on my iPhone 11 and regularly when I open it I’m unable to arm/disarm the system as it’s offline temporarily and some cameras show not connected to the internet. So if I’m heading outside and want to save camera battery life I can’t disarm the system and the cameras don’t record whilst the base is offline.

When it’s not offline it generally works ok but some days the postman can deliver the post without even triggering the Arlo as it must be during one of its offline moments so it’s not really a suitable security system as it is.

I’ve searched the forum but can’t find a solution. I’ve tried going in my router settings and trying a static IP address but have no idea what to use in all the fields (subnet mask, default gateway, DNS serves etc) or if that would even help.

ive also tried wiring the base in to a WiFi repeater’s Ethernet port which made no difference and it behaved just the same.

can anyone help? Is this an Arlo problem or is my router or network at fault. Would changing my router help? (I don’t want to buy a new router to find no benefit). Can any settings for my router or the base station help this?

Thanks for any help.

[StephenB]

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@888Steve wrote:

Is this an Arlo problem or is my router or network at fault. Would changing my router help? (I don’t want to buy a new router to find no benefit). Can any settings for my router or the base station help this?

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It sounds to me like it is a router or mobile network problem, so I'd suggest looking into that first.

Setting a static IP address won't help, so there's no need to pursue that at present.

You can try running a ping test for a while, and see if that sees any signicant internet outages or drops in the ethernet link between the router and the base station.

gping is one of several tools you can use to do this: https://sourceforge.net/projects/gping/

You'd set it up on a PC, and ping the base station (getting the current IP address from your router), and my.arlo.com (which will test your internet connectivity).  You likely will see some occasional drops, but there shouldn't be many (and you shouldn't see sustained loss of service).

Ideally the PC would be connected with ethernet, but WiFi will also work.

Note there this test does use some bandwidth (not a lot, as the ping packets are small). Still, the internet test would count against any data caps.  You can slow the polling frequency - that would reduce the bandwidth use.

[888Steve]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for your reply. I downloaded gping on to my laptop and connected it via Ethernet to my router. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing with gping but I used the add host button to add my base station then pressed the play button without changing any other settings.

I ran it for several minutes then pressed stop. During the test I was watching the base station and the 2nd light (internet) went amber 3 or 4 times. Whilst it was amber one time I saw on my Arlo app that the base station was indeed offline.

I got the pink bar chart  with the following figures below it:

Round trip time Min 1.89 ms   Avg 2.80 ms   Max 8.24 ms

packets sent 305, received 305, lost 0

when I ran it again the max came down to 5.24 and the average 2.60 still with no lost packets.

im not sure at all what that really tells me so would love to hear what you think. If I should run the test with any different settings let me know.

thanks

edit to add. I left it running longer and saw a max round trip time of 18.04 with still no lost packets but around the time of the high figure my base was offline for over a minute. 

[StephenB]

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@888Steve wrote:

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for your reply. I downloaded gping on to my laptop and connected it via Ethernet to my router. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing with gping but I used the add host button to add my base station then pressed the play button without changing any other settings.

edit to add. I left it running longer and saw a max round trip time of 18.04 with still no lost packets but around the time of the high figure my base was offline for over a minute. 

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It means that gping was able to reach whatever you added with add host.

Was that the web site (my.arlo.com) or did you enter the base station IP address?

[888Steve]

I entered the base station IP address and host name after checking them by logging in to my router. So judging by those results with the fact the base station was still going offline during the test does that narrow it down or eliminate anything?

thanks

[StephenB]

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@888Steve wrote:

 So judging by those results with the fact the base station was still going offline during the test does that narrow it down or eliminate anything?

It suggests that the problem isn't likely to be your local network or your internet connection.  Though the base isn't directly connecting to my.arlo.com - it's connecting to a backend arlo server.

Probably the next step is to contact support (using the link in the top right of the forum page).

[Minburn57]

Sounds to me as simply par for the course for longer term Arlo 'reliability.

Of late, I'm having considerable OFFLINE status when the base station indicates all functioning and my main router is connected to the Arlo base.  Many other network devices and (like usual) NO other network issues other than Arlo.

Six years with Arlo.  As other have indicated, first year or two excellent performance and reliability.  Then downhill from that point on.

So much as yourself, wondering this evening what to do 'again' with a system that claims OFFLINE when all hardware suggests otherwise.

Their system is a mess.  Reflected in a number of threads under a number of subtopics/Arlo system folders in this forum.

I'm wondering now if after 4 years of unreliable service, the answer might be a legitimate 'the hardware is faulty with age' status this time around?

Good luck to you.

[MikeBravo]

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@Minburn57 wrote:

Sounds to me as simply par for the course for longer term Arlo 'reliability.

Of late, I'm having considerable OFFLINE status when the base station indicates all functioning and my main router is connected to the Arlo base.  Many other network devices and (like usual) NO other network issues other than Arlo.

Six years with Arlo.  As other have indicated, first year or two excellent performance and reliability.  Then downhill from that point on.

So much as yourself, wondering this evening what to do 'again' with a system that claims OFFLINE when all hardware suggests otherwise.

Their system is a mess.  Reflected in a number of threads under a number of subtopics/Arlo system folders in this forum.

I'm wondering now if after 4 years of unreliable service, the answer might be a legitimate 'the hardware is faulty with age' status this time around?

Good luck to you.

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Its happening to us and has been for more than a week off and on and we wonder if its happening to anyone else or if we have just somehow go on Arlo's naughty list.

Login, view your cameras, but the second you go view a recording, they all go of line. 

Often they come right back a minute later, but just as often they don't and if you go to your phone or tablet you can still view your cameras but just as often they show offline there too.

About ten days ago when we would login through the PC web portal, didn't matter if it was Edge, Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, Firefox, instantly you get these strange orange bars popping up above the window with an error message saying that he session 'Timed Out'. 

Not our WiFi, no problem with other websites, nothing changed on our router, no issues reported from Comcast.

Typically Arlo.

[cash7c3]

Looks like this is the new normal for Arlo.  It's very inconvenient and I regret having invested into Arlo instead of a competitor several years ago.  Security video that turns itself on and off all the time is almost as good as useless.  

[MikeBravo]

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@cash7c3 wrote:

Looks like this is the new normal for Arlo.  It's very inconvenient and I regret having invested into Arlo instead of a competitor several years ago.  Security video that turns itself on and off all the time is almost as good as useless.  

Well, this morning came a new development.

Once again on our android phones all the cameras were offline and then a moment later they were back online-----and then checking a few minutes later came the message that Arlo was texting a code to the phone for 2FA!

We hadn't enabled it for obvious reasons, but now it seems they've kidnapped our cameras and holding them for ransom hoping we suppose that we'll cut off our noses to spit our faces and refuse to use them with 2FA.

This of course will allow backstabbing Arlo to still collect subscription but not have there servers handle our loads.

I guess they don't realize they're cutting off their noses to spit their faces as they can't survive without growth and as yet another Arlo user who won't be buying any more of their junk we'll help drive them out of business.

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[Edinburgh_lad1]

I'm sorry, but this issue of the base station going offline is unrelated to one's private network and the set up. It's clear to me that it's now a widespread problem that has surfaced since the last firmware upgrade. It certainly affects more users. I started a separate topic about that not that long ago, but obviously not everyone takes the time and makes the effort to search through even the list of recent topics. 

[Edinburgh_lad1]

How can you even suggest it's the router or network problem if clearly the issue is the recent firmware being deployed to Arlo base stations. 

[MikeBravo]

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@Edinburgh_lad1 wrote:

I'm sorry, but this issue of the base station going offline is unrelated to one's private network and the set up. It's clear to me that it's now a widespread problem that has surfaced since the last firmware upgrade. It certainly affects more users. I started a separate topic about that not that long ago, but obviously not everyone takes the time and makes the effort to search through even the list of recent topics. 

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Good to hear that many others are reporting this. 

Of course, unlike Comcast, Samsung, Dell, Amazon, eBay, and so many other major online corporations that do, it sure would have been better if good old Arlo had sent out a 'blast' E-Mail to all its users as soon as they began getting reports to let us know its not us and save us all a lot of time and aggravation.

But, that's why Eufy, Ring, and so many others are kicking their butts.

[Wfd75]

Believe me ITS NOT  router problem,  this is an arlo issue.  Having same issure, changed routers, check all wiring  and connections.  Verizon tech on site for two hours complete test all internet/wifi is 100%.  Arlo did something somewhere hence all thes complaints

[Wfd75]

What's Eufy? they any good?

[MikeBravo]

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@Wfd75 wrote:

What's Eufy? they any good?

From what we understand, they are a very good alternative to Arlo. Like Arlo and Blink among others, they are wireless and in the case of Eufy have long battery life. Motion detection and resolution is okay, but not better than Arlo. Their big selling point is reliabiltiy.

Our neighbor has blink and once had Arlo but his home was burglarized and Arlo saw nothing. He reports that Blink NEVER has issues.

The only issue for us is that neither of these has a PC web portal.

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[MikeBravo]

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@Wfd75 wrote:

Believe me ITS NOT  router problem,  this is an arlo issue.  Having same issure, changed routers, check all wiring  and connections.  Verizon tech on site for two hours complete test all internet/wifi is 100%.  Arlo did something somewhere hence all thes complaints

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Agreed. What's strange is that most of the time when we try to access our cameras we get a message on each one that they are offline---yet they are still recording.

Most of the time when we try to check those records, we get a  session 'Timed Out' message and then the whole thing freezes up.

[wfd075]

Thank you for the info. I was trying to find their WEB site but no luck. All reviews rate them pretty high, battery life is very good.

[MikeBravo]

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@wfd075 wrote:
Thank you for the info. I was trying to find their WEB site but no luck. All reviews rate them pretty high, battery life is very good.

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We started at Amazon.

[MikeBravo]

Well, it was okay for a while, all the cameras though the PC web portal and on our android devices were back online again.

However, today, its back. One camera is offline on the PC web portal, but is perfectly fine and accessible on our android devices.

Go figure.

I just wish they would get this right and stop fooling around.

[wfd075]

Yep, mine all went down today for a couple of minutes, then came back. What they really need to do, is to start informing customers of outages, so we don’t think it’s something else. They have everyone’s e-mail so there’s not excuse.

[dcfox1]

@MikeBravo  Have you tried another browser when one did not work on portal since it worked in the app to narrow it down? 

[MikeBravo]

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@dcfox1 wrote:

@MikeBravo  Have you tried another browser when one did not work on portal since it worked in the app to narrow it down? 

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We did. This time it only affected one camera in our Brave and Maxthon browsers.

Now, this morning after being out all day, the camera is back in all browsers. Don't understand what's going on.

However, something we've never mentioned is that every time we go to log in to Arlo using Chrome, we get an 'invalid certificate' error message informing us that the login is 'insecure'.

Good old Arlo.

[Intheswamp]

I've been experiencing this for several weeks now.  We live in a rural area but with a major state highway close to us.  We've been burglarized once and things stolen from outside on three occasions over the past 30 years.   We didn't get the "latest, greatest" Arlo offering because we simply could not afford it.  But our 5-camera Pro 2 setup was touted as a great system, non-the-less. 

The Arlo system works great...when it works.  But, over the last 3-4 weeks we've been greeted with "Offline" and an orange light on the base unit.  No internet issues to speak of, no router issues to speak of.  I can be sitting at the computer and on the Internet with no problem and look across at the Arlo base unit and the dreaded orange light will be lit.  That isn't nearly as alarming (no pun intended) as being 100 miles from home and checking the system only to find it saying OFFLINE.  Or, waking up in the morning and seeing it OFFLINE.  Or even just at the grandkids ballgame and checking the system's status.  Sometimes you can simply hit "ARM" and it will go online and arm itself....but, this doesn't help unless you sit there with your face glued to your phone or computer all of the time.   This kind of makes me wonder about the liability of Arlo in regards to burglaries and theft...it's sold as a "security system".  It's certainly seeming like that isn't exactly true.  I'm beginning to think this may be the worst $500 I've ever invested.