Random, shifting problems, after flawless years!

[motjebben]

Dear Arlo, Recently one of my cameras would display pink, even after I removed the batteries. I solved the problem, by removing that camera and adding it back. A day later, a different camera would not work, because it said it was offline! I removed it and added it and it worked again. Two days later, another camera would not recognize motion. I added it back, but it still would not detect motion, until I changed modes. Then it worked fine. I put it back to the mode it was supposed to (and always had worked previously) and it stopped detecting motion again. Then a different camera said it is offline. What is going on? If, suppose, the the answer is to reset the base station, what is the best way to do that without losing all of my modes and settings - or are those stored "in-the-cloud"? Please advise on what steps I ought to take in order of preference to self-troubleshoot this issue with the least likelihood of losing my settings? This entire system has been working wonderfully for more than 3 years! What gives now?

[ShayneS]

Hi @motjebben

Are all your devices including base station up to date on the latest firmware? I have attached a link to the Firmware Release Notes here.

[motjebben]

Yes:  All up to date: 

BASE: VMB3010r2, FW 1.12.0.1_27940

Four Arlo Wirefree cameras (HW Ver H7), FW 1.3.314

One ArloQ VMC3040r6, FW 1.9.0.0_269

[motjebben]

Mostly good news!   Last night, as I was walking the perimiter of our house to test the cameras and then checking for symptoms, I noticed at one point that EVERYTHING went offline - I had not done anything!   But now - as of this morning - 2019_May_4th, all of the cameras are working, not pink AND connected and detecting motion, but only if I put them in ARMED mode.  My one scheduled mode is not working.

[motjebben]

I just edited my scheduled mode and discovered that the devices that I had to re-sync were no longer listed.  By re-adding them to that mode, everything is now working as expected!

Hence, it appears that whatever happened last night (probably in-the-cloud on the back-end Arlo servers or possibly some push to my base station caused all cameras to work normally, and the re-adding them to the scheduled mode solved everything.  THANK YOU!

[motjebben]

Oh no!   Now one of the cameras is not turning on the infrared at night again.   What is up with Arlo?   Used to be so good.  Now it has been a few weeks of constant shifting problems!

[motjebben]

Tonight's problem is that one of the cameras will detect motion and turn on the InfraRed LEDs, but the image is pitch-black!  How can that be? 

[ShayneS]

@motjebben

You may have to remove the batteries to reboot the camera again, if that does not help with the infrared issue, you can contact Arlo Tech Support

[ds2017]

I just now read your posts since May 1st. Your problems sound identical to mine. Like you, I went three years with no problems until the last couple of weeks. I finally got all four camers working again, but one of them only shows in red/pink color. I tried all the usual things to restore the full color, but to no avail.

Maybe a miracle will happen and it will fix itself? I have what is probably the older basic system with basic cameras and I use a laptop. Thanks for posting and good luck to you sir.

[ds2017]

Well dang!  Life is Good. The gnarly red/pink camera just fixed itself in the last 5 minutes back to normal color.

I was about to put my tinfoil hat on; but I'll keep it in the closet in case something else happens.

~David

[motjebben]

Thank you for the well-wishes!  I keep re-setting (batteries out, then in) and, when that doesn't work, removing camera and adding.  I can get it to work for awhile.  I seem to be having less "random  shifting of problems" among the other cameras, hence, it "seems" like progress.  I'll try a bit more, but might also buy a Blink XT2 to do a bit of "side-by-side" comparisons.  

[motjebben]

I finally got a chance to get the ladders out and make my way around the house so that I could remove all cameras from the base, resync them, and then put them back again.    Hopefully that will do the trick.  I really like this arlo system and have for the almost 3 years; I just hope they'll work longer.

[motjebben]

Two nights of working well, since my removing and adding all devices!  Keeping fingers crossed and will post subsequent update after more days.

[motjebben]

Unfortunately, the problem came back, hence I filed a case on May 16th, 2019.  The Arlo support agent is kindly helping me, though we have basically just duplicated all of the steps that I've previously tried before with the same results:  It works for awhile and then fails.   I am hoping that at some point soon, I will have provided the agent enough evidence that it truly is a problem, and that I've already done due-diligence to debug such that we can take more effective steps and  actually get to a resolution.  The other cameras are working very well, though there was an arlo issue last night (May 17th, 2019) where saving to the library was not functioning in all (as per: https://status.arlo.com/):  I had to do some screen captures to show the non-working camera images instead of saving to the library and sharing links with the agent.

[motjebben · Accepted solution]

Arlo support finally indicated that because my camera is older than the 1 year warranty, they could neither replace nor repair.   I still love Arlo, but have purchased a Blink XT2 as a replacement and will use the best of both systems.