My Arlo camera's are offline

[Kennymb5384]

Only thing worse than these cameras is the customer service...smh. Cameras went offline again last night. Hope I didn't miss anything important...

[JamesC]

Kennymb5384,

If your cameras are dropping offline and draining batteries, it's possible there could be interference or weak WiFi signal between the base station and the cameras. Consider relocating the base station and be sure it is away from any other wireless devices that could cause interference.

JamesC

[Kennymb5384]

If you saw my comment not far above this one you would have seen that it is NOT a connection issue.  I know this for a fact.  My camera is within about 30 feet of the base station and my WiFi is running at 99% via Wifi explorer and my speed test for WiFi is currently running above average during the time my cameras have gone down.  They go offline at least once a day and the battery drains within two days now.  That is NOT normal via any circumstances.  I work in the tech world and know what I am talking about.  This is riduclous.  It was not this bad when I purchased Arlo 5 months ago.  My battery life lasted over a month and I maybe lost signal once a week, if that.  Now all of sudden batteries last two days and I lose signal on the camera once or twice a day.  Base staion is in the exact same spot and the camera is in the exact same spot they always have been.

[jguerdat]

Well, unless you have access to a WiFi sniffer that can show what signals may be interfering with the cameras, you really can't say it's not interference. 30 feet allows for a lot of possibilities. It sounds like it's unlikely but never say never.

What I would try - power cycle the base (not just the restart button in the app/browser) and open and close the battery doors to reset everything. It may not solve the issue but it has cleared up some weirdness seen after the update.

[Kennymb5384]

The fact that your product says a maximum of 300 feet from the base an mine is 30, is really troubling.  I would understand, if this was rarely happening, but this is once or twice a day.  And like I said before, my previous Arlo set up had the exact same distance, camera in the same place and base station in the same place with no issue.  This also does not explain why my battery life has changed from over a month to 4-5 days.

I run a nest thermostat as well and use the app which requires a wifi signal and have never had an issue with the Nest being lost.  The nest is alos further away than the camera.  Yesterday, i tried to reset the camers as well and it did not fix anything.  I am not power cycling the base and messing with the cameras twice a day.  These are troubleshooting steps for isolated issues.  The fact that this thread is 6 pages long with perople now seeing the same issues I am, is a problem that is not being addessed.

[j1stealth]

Hi Kenny,

You seem to have the exact same issue with me.  I have finally solved my problem by doing a fresh start.  Deactivate arlo system and redo the whole setup again.  Just to be safe, turn off your wifi router as well.  

Support defintely didn't help and they didn't seem to know what was the problem.  Reset cameras or arlo don't help.

Anyhow give it a try.  It costs me like $$ of batteries in 3 weeks... sigh.. i am already trying to find another alternative to this arlo system..

good luck.. i hope the issue doesn't come back again for me..

[Kennymb5384]

Yeah, this is pretty crazy.  We tell their support what we have already done and they recommend doing it again like we are idiots.  I just had my brand new batteries drain in 3 days.  There is no excuse for that.  I actually listened to the last support rep and did what he suggested which helped for about an half hour and they are back to being offline again...Shocker!  I will be doing my best to make sure no one I know buys this crap.  I have no idea what they did in their updates, but the first Arlo system I bought about 6 months ago worked great with no issues.  I will be looking for an alternate solution as well.

[jfrenaye]

My latest round wiht "support"...do all the crap you have already done and it will be fine.  They cannot keep running a business with the ONLY answer is to do a hard reset.  Yes, that is acceptable on occasion, but to keep it up and running---no way!

They DID tell me about a change they made in the APP that they seemingly never told anyone... if your notifications disappeared (iOS) you woudl think that you go into Settings->Notifications->and enable Arlo.  Well you have to do that. But then you also need to access Arlo from a desktop and then go into MODE, and then click on the MY DEVICES in the left pane. Then EDIT the specific MODE. Then select EDIT for the specific camera(s) that you want. Then scroll to the very bottom and select NOTIFICATION.  Then do that for every camera. Then lather, rinse, and repeat for every mode.

But they have yet to address the battery drain or the offline. It randomly goes offline and unless I check it, there is no way of knowing.

I too will do what I can to steer people away 

[Kdfrink]

I'm getting motion alerts on my phone but when I login it says my camera is offline and nothing in library

[Kennymb5384]

Yeah it's funny how the only thing that seems work is the wireless signal bars on my account that show FULL strength but the cameras are still offline...

[StuBee]

Hello Kenny,

- You realize that the wifi the arlo camera's use is not the Router wifi, but the one from the Arlo base station?   I'm just not 100% sure what you were measuring, and even so, it wouldn't tell you the quality of the signal, only the strength.

- Have you tried changing your wifi router channel?    I believe the Arlo will change it's own wifi channel to match your router after a reboot.   It could be something new has popped up in the area causing interference on that channel....thus causing the offlines and battery drain.

Just something to try.

[Kennymb5384]

I know it's not my personal wifi strength that it's measuring. What I am saying is it is clearly reviewing my signal. I have changed channels three times and I am currently the only one (at least in my surround long neighborhood) that is on my current channel and am receiving signal at 99%. I have done multiple reboots on both my router and the Arlo base station and nothing works. They will pop up and work fine for a few hours and just like clockwork...nothing. And there should be no excuse for brand new batteries to drain completely in three days...I should not say NO excuse, but no excuse that is acceptable by Netgear and not being fixed or acknowledged. From the threads I am seeing I am clearly not alone.

[Kennymb5384]

Sorry for the auto-correct on some of that

[j1stealth]

@kenny,
Did you try to deactivate by remove your Arlo system from the app/web account and setup again? I feel like I had the exact same issue as yours.

[jguerdat]

Yup, sometimes starting from scratch with a deactivation, factory reset and resyncing the cameras is all (?) that's needed.  However, the battery drain indicates either poor signal strength (distance, walls, ceilings, wiring, pipes, ductwork, etc.) and/or wireless interference from other devices on the 2.4GHz band.  It may be that repositioning the base would be the best answer, whether simply rotating it, putting it on a long Ethernet cable or using a WiFi extender.  It's a bit of trial and error since the problem usually isn't obvious unless you know where all the possible obstacles are.

[Db6cargo]

My view on my smartphone works great but the wife cannot get hers to stay online

[jguerdat]

Try reinstalling the app on her phone. What's the difference between your phones including OS?

[Pmgjm]

Always have one of my camera at the carport and it worked fine for two months. After that it always goes offline or it will alert that it picked up motion but no image or recording and live camera won't work. If it does work on live it won't take video or snap shots. I heard from Arlo tech that it's a server problem and they are working on it?! It's been like this for some time now and can't have a security camera that works only half the time.

[Pmgjm]

I'm experiencing the same thing. I was told by a Arlo tech that it's there server and the engineers are working on it?! Hmm it's been awhile and cannot have a security camera that doesn't work. I was happy the first couple months and it just went to **bleep**.

[Pmgjm]

Same crap happening to mine.

[JamesC]

Pmgjm,

Consider swapping locations of the problem camera with a camera that is not displaying this behavior to further isolate the issue. This will tell us if there is a problem with the location of the camera (potentially some sort of interference) or possibly an issue with that specific camera.

Please let us know the results.

JamesC

[Pmgjm]

James c I was told by Arlo tech support that it is a Arlo server problem that engineers are trying to fix. My case # 26409516 for reference. I have tried everything that was suggested on tech support but all it did was a temporary fix and back to the same problems. I have research in this Arlo community and a lot of people have almost the same problem and that's what I was also told that I'm not the only one. Please fix quick and a response once it's fix. Can't have a non working camera.

[Roger07]

bought this system yesterday with 4 cameras and work fine, but today everything is offline and will not come back on. what can i do ?

[jguerdat]

Quick thing to do is to  use the power switch on the base to reset it. Verify that all LEDs on the base are green.  If that doesn't help, try opening and closing battery doors (maybe just one for initial testing).  Log out and back into Arlo.  Try a different browser as well as the app. It may just be a display thing or something is hung up.

[Diparks]

My cameras are not showing a feed.  I have reset the base station, verified internet connection and at the point the sync happens, the camera will not flash blue.  Can you offer suggestions?