Firmware upgrade again to 1.12.2.1_2798, causing the image or video downgrade, lower the resolution

[dsiu2902]

Firmware upgrade again to 1.12.2.1_2798, causing the live streaming, image or recorded video downgrade, lower the resolution, is everyone having the same problem yet. the Firmware upgrade was yesterday midnight (May 21, 2019).

[glcjr]

Mine are having the issue.

[jguerdat]

Have you rebooted the base?

[glcjr]

I did but it didn't help mine.

[dsiu2902]

Hi, has your base station been upgraded to 1.12.2.1_2798? If so, what problem do you have? when did the problem started?Please advise! !

[Bradenm49]

I'm having the same issue.

Turned camera on and off, no change.

Restarted base station, no change.

They only just started doing this and the weird thing is when I go into video settings the feed is crystal clear, no pixelation, then if I go to the regular live feed it distorts everything. So weird.

I have to assume it is the firmware because it happened at once with both cameras. Is there a way to downgrade until a patch is released? Security can't be down right now with an ongoing criminal dispute.

[Bradenm49]

After closer analyzing the actual feed I realize that it is progressive. Every 2-3 seconds the image seems to almost overlap itself thus creating a blurred and completely degraded video with slow changes to motion. I took a small recording to show this. 

(also, this camera is very close to the hub with only an inside wall between it and the base, only about 10 feet away.)

https://arlo.netgear.com/hmsweb/users/library/share/link/87ACEBFC81877E2D_201905

[glcjr]

Yes the firmware was upgraded to 1.12.2.1_2798 and the cameras have been acting screwy since. The video that Bradenm49 posted shows the same thing that my cameras are doing. 

[dsiu2902]

A few minutes ago I had a conversation with Arlo's support. As a result, so far, only you and I have had this problem, and not enough people complain about it, so they can't talk to their engineering team. There is no way to roll back only you and me, if they decide to roll back, it must be everyone. I have tried everything that you can name it, but it still doesn't work. This is another (Screwed up) firmware without testing.  Force you to have it. I hope that there will be enough people to comment here to force them to roll back the firmware. Anyone with a problem, please stand up and post.

[dsiu2902]

I was a little suprised that more than 100 people have reviewed this post, but so far only three or four people have problems. The explaination for this is that if you recall on May 2, 2019, they were a new firmware and asked volunteers, but no one signed up. So now, they randomly selected some people to test to see how many people complainted about it. If there aren't too many people, they will send this scazy (screwed up) firmware to everyone.

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[ShayneS]

What power management setting do you have the cameras on? is it on best battery life mode? This would cause a drop in quality. I have attached an article here that will help guide you to this. Have you tried to reboot the base station & test again?

How do I change my Arlo camera's power management settings?

[glcjr]

I have rebooted the base station

I have tried choosing Best Video

I have rebooted again

When that did nothing I returned it to optimize setting

I rebooted again.

The video remains horrible since this firmware update.

[Bradenm49]

I have changed the quality, but with no change. I have changed literally every setting available on my cameras. Even going in and changing the zoom on what it is looking at.

I find it frustrating that you would suggest that our quality setting is too low. The problem isn't that we changed something it's that when we didn't change anything on our end that all of a sudden all of our cameras would degrade to an unusable quality.

[dsiu2902]

I have another explanation for this (horrible) firmware, which is related to cloud storage, and if everyone's video can be reduced to the lowest quality, this will help Arlo's cloud storage. (Storage / space issue).

The other is an aftermarket sale. You may think that your product is bad and is out of warranty. You may end up to buy a replacement product. 

[Bradenm49]

That could be true because we are on the older version. But at the same time they are going to lose people because after an issue like this I’m not sticking with the same brand. I’ve already been testing out another system and am willing to have a contractor put power plugs on the outside of my house since they only use power and not batteries. Honestly it will probably still be cheaper than an Arlo setup even with the contractor.

I literally have someone we are trying to serve restraining order papers to right now and I can’t get a clear video of when they are at our house (my WiFi router tells me they are there and connected to the internet so I know they are there). Super frustrating for a security camera company to disregard such a debilitating issue.

I get that issues need to be large enough for the engineers to spend time on this issue but honestly how can they say that it isn’t an issue when at least 3 people have the exact same issue at the exact same time?

[parsrgood]

I am having the same problem. Web browser, iPhone 6s and iPad all running the newest versions. This is on arlo and they will never admit to it. Arlo releases updates without checking all of the boxes. I went through a situation like this back in march of 2018. Thier support responds to consumers as if we are idiots. They insult our intelligence by having us jump through the same hoops everytime. Boot, reboot, uninstall and install. They finally admitted they had screwed up and released a update on 3/30/18. Back then I brought The Better Busssiness Bureau into the matter. Even after they fixed their botched update they didn't admit to or appoligise for the innconveinence. If this is not fixed soon I will once again complain to the BBB. 

[Bradenm49]

I called support as well and after an unhelpful talk (because yes after telling you I checked my internet and explaining why that wasn’t the issue, yes please ask me what my speed test is...) where the only problem solving brought up was unsyncing and resyncing the cameras, then finally factory resetting the base station. I’ll have to try these when I’m home later today and will update wether that has any affect on the issue.

I also found it interesting that when asking them if I was the only one with this problem they said there was no record of anyone else with this issue and that I was the only one that was having an issue. Which I told them was not true but I understood that this was a typical answer they would give when they know the problem is obviously on their end. Might be worth reaching out to support so there is more traffic there as well to show them we’re all here waiting.

[vingg]

I have the same issue which just within the last couple of days. I have rebooted base station,  rebooted cameras even did a complete setup agian. Still bad looking video on both my two Arlo cameras and my one Arlo Pro camera. 

I should be able to turn off and on firmware updates. If my system is working well just leave it alone. Now it looks like a get a firmware update automaticly and now my video looks like **bleep**. I was looking into adding cameras, but now my wife thinks we should look at a different system. With the video in the current state I would have to agree with her. If I cannot get better video shortly instead of researching what cameras to add it will be researching what system to replace the current one.

[ShayneS]

The Arlo development team is currently investigating reports on this issue. We will provide an update as soon as we have more information to share with the community.

[parsrgood]

Thank you ShayneS.  It’s nice to get a response letting us know this will be looked into. Please keep us advised. Hopefully we will not have to escalate this to the point of negative reviews and product shaming. I will say that netgear should really stop trying to update a product that is working well. Seems like the many updates your team puts out are not fully tested. And that does not look good for a company selling security.

[dsiu2902]

For everyone with problems:

My assumption is correct, this new firmware upgrade 1.12.2.1_2798 or any future firmware upgrade is helping Arlo company to eliminate any cloud storage issue. It is not for us, check it out yourself.  Download old video (Before upgrade) with the same length of time and compare the new video (After upgrade). My old video is 10,426 KB, and now the new video is 1,750 KB, as you can see, how much space they can save in cloud storage. Since our base station is doing all video compression, they can do or modify the program/software as they wish. I agreed with the vingg comment: "We should have an option to turn off and on for our firmware updates. If the system is working well, just leave it alone." They force us to use cloud storage instead of our hard drive, I can live with it, however, they should not allow to take away our privilege to upgrade our firmware and did not tell us before purchasing the unit. We should report to BBB and make a bad assessment of the firmware upgrade for all new buyers.  

[CzarDM]

Spot on. My unit after the forced firmware update is totally crippled. All complaints on this forum logged. If not provided with a solution soon will be looking in to proceeding with a class action suit.

Esq.

[Willow25]

You are so right. I have spent my entire day on the phone trying to get someone to help me fix this problem. Everything thing was fine until this update came through. Now I cannot live stream my cameras. Sick of customer service telling me that there have been no problems reported and making me trouble shoot all day for something that was caused on their end. Now I am away from home and have to worry because cameras are failing. What is the point of this security system when it’s one problem after another caused by them????? We should be compensated. I am beyond disgusted!!!

[Yodude6]

I have the same problems everyone else is getting with the pixelated videos and live cameras. I also did all the troubleshooting, rebooting and so on and after reading this very helpful forum, I got on to customer support, where I went through all the questions you all had. At the end I was told that the engineers are aware of the problem and investigating it and I would be emailed with the outcome.

[Pcm_smeets]

I have the normal Arlo basestation and 2 cameras. And I also have very pixelled images. On live feed or recorded videos. I had a chat with a very friendly Arlo employee and she told me that the problems are known and engineers are working hard to resolve the problem. So i hope so