Possible solution for "Upgrade failed -- camera rejected upgrade request"

[jgsouthard]

On July 22, 2018, two of my five Arlo Wireless (G1) cameras started forcing a firmware upgrade to version 1.2.21616 on the Devices live preview screen (the other three cameras had already upgraded automatically). I couldn't run live video until I completed the upgrade, since the "upgrade is required" notice blocked the video display.

But repeated attempts to manually upgrade the firmware kept resulting in "Upgrade failed - camera rejected upgrade request."

After searching the forums, the consistent response seems to be that this can be caused by either slow upload/download speeds (under 1 MB/s) or weak WiFi signals at the camera. Neither were true in my case (120/12 MB/s upload/download speeds, three bars WiFi strength on both, no competing channel overlaps).

This was an an unscientific sampling so I can't declare this to be a solution, but here's what finally worked for me:

1. Run the upgrade on only ONE camera at a time. I got the error whenever I tried to run both cameras at the same time.
2. Keep the browser window open and active for the entire upgrade, until completion. If I closed or even minimized the browser window, the upgrade timed out and failed.

By upgrading each camera one at a time, keeping the browser window open, I was able to complete the upgrades on both cameras.