Email Alerts/Video Recordings - Not Getting, or Getting Very Late

[iSage]

  I really wish Netgear would address this problem that has been getting worse over the past 2 weeks...

  As I have reported several times, including just a few days ago along with several others, I am getting the Push Notifications/Alerts on my cell phone when motion is detected on any of my 3 Arlo wireless cams, but the email alerts as well as the video that is supposed to then show up in the Library is quite delayed (been taking anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to get email alert or video to show in Library, or not showing up at all!!). I'm still missing email alerts and videos from yesterday that never showed up at all!

  What good are my Arlo cameras if I'm not home, but get a push notification alert(s) about motion being detected, but cannot "see" exactly what is going on at that moment??

   No email message means no image to click on, and no video in Library means the same. This is absurd! I've checked and re-checked each and every setting, even deleted all previous days' videos, but there is no rhyme or reason as to why some motions show up, some show up quite late, while others don't show up at all.

  I am very disappointed and not a happy camper or customer of late at all.  In the past 2 weeks, this problem has gotten worse instead of better. My husband wants to rip the 3 cameras down at this point and literally dump them and take the $450 loss for what we paid, because he's tired of seeing me stress out and be upset over this.

  Please Netgear - PLEASE address this problem on these boards to myself as well as all your other Arlo customers with the same problem. And as I suggested in my last post from 1/29/16, it would be great if you created a 24-hr Status page to let your customers know if there are server problems, software problems, hardware problems, etc.
  Thank you in advance,
~Susan

[JamesC]

The Arlo team is aware that this issue is affecting some customers. Our engineering team is investigating the root cause and a fix will be released as soon as we have a resolution. Once a resolution is reached we will post an update. We appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this issue.

Thank you,

JamesC

[Jimfr]

FYI, I'm also experiencing this issue:  I get push notifications, but I don't always get emails from my brand new Arlo Q.

[iSage]

Thanks for the reply JamesC, but apparently it still hasn't been fixed yet..

As of right now, (1:15 pm in Pennsylvania, on the east coast of the US), I am already missing email notifications and library videos from motion detected HOURS ago today - only got the push notifications on my iPhone and nothing else.

And as of yesterday's date, I'm STILL missing two emails and two library videos - one from early in the morning (7:55am ET), and one from the evening (6:01pm ET). Got the push notifications that motion was detected (2 different Arlo wireless cams), but still cannot SEE what set them off, even over 29 HOURS later.  They just don't show up late any more - they just don't show up at all any more!  I'm going to assume the ones I missing from today aren't going to show up at all either.

As I have mentioned previously, this is going on for at least 2½ WEEKS now and keeps getting progressively worse!  At least in the past (though I don't consider this a consolation at all), the emails and videos would show up late, usually within 30-60 minutes. But that's not even the case any more - now they aren't showing up at all !!

And these type of problems actually started immediately after the forced update from Netgear at the end of December 2014.

If engineeers have been working on it, then exactly how much longer - what is the ETA before they actually fix it?  These security cameras are no longer "security" cameras to me if I cannot SEE exactly what is setting them off!

Please understand I am NOT blaming you JamesC - but you appear to be the Netgear rep on these boards and the only one who gave me and others any info at all.  **Could you also tell me exactly WHERE on these boards will you post the update once this problem is resolved (or any info pretaining to it)? Is there a special message board or area or link to look at and go to?***  

Thanks again,
~Susan

[ant]

I am noticing this too for today. 15 minutes late with the e-mails. Also, no forum e-mail notifications again. Argh!

[ant]

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ant wrote:

I am noticing this too for today. 15 minutes late with the e-mails. Also, no forum e-mail notifications again. Argh!

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It looks like the e-mails are being fast now again. 🙂

[iSage]

    ant wrote:

I" am noticing this too for today. 15 minutes late with the e-mails. Also, no forum e-mail notifications again. Argh!"

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    Some are, some aren't.

    I've been actually keeping a running log for the past 3 days...

    I mark down the exact time of when I get an alert/push notification of motion, and then mark down when (I should say IF), I get the accompanying email as well as the video in the library.

Either the email and library video show up at the same time as the push alert, or it doesn't show up at all! Not late, but not at all.  Very upsetting, very disheartening, and still no new updates on the situation. 

     I've just begun researching the best outdoor video cameras that do not work in the cloud but have their own hard drive or memory, to replace my less than 3-month old Arlo cameras. As I said before and it bears repeating - it's not security if I can't SEE what is causing the motion late or in my case, not at all!

[iSage]

  What is actual the status of the problem with not getting anything but the push notification alert (no emails and no library videos), that I've been reporting about, along with many others, the past 3+ weeks?
   I actually thought it might have been fixed, because this past weekend (Sat. 2/6 and Sun. 2/7), I was getting all the emails and library videos for each push notification alert for the first time in weeks!  But apparently I was wrong about it being fixed at all, because as of this morning, once again, I am missing the emails and library videos for motions, some are missing almost 7 hours at this point, and I have found if they don't show up within an hour, then they never show up at all. Like all my videos and email are lost in cyberspace somewhere on Netgear's servers.

   What can't Netgear fix their own problem? It's been weeks!

[JamesC]

iSage,

Our engineering team is still investigating this issue. I will post an update once a resolution has been met.

JamesC

[The-Wall]

I've been encountering this issue since this afternoon. I did get 3 notifications and videos from before noon. Seven push notifications since noon but no videos...Looks like the problem started only this afternoon for me. I've checked all my settings, cables etc and even restarted the base station.

[carnaval]

just as fyi - same problem here

three cameras

phone push notification but no video in library 

seems webservice emails are more reliable

approx 20% of notifications have no video

[iSage]

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The-Wall wrote:

"I've been encountering this issue since this afternoon. I did get 3 notifications and videos from before noon. Seven push notifications since noon but no videos...Looks like the problem started only this afternoon for me. I've checked all my settings, cables etc and even restarted the base station".

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    Consider yourself lucky if this only started happening to you just today. This has been happening to me since the last forced update at the end of December 2015, and has gotten progressivley worse and worse especially in the past 4 weeks...

     I now keep a daily log for each alert/push notification, and when and IF I actually get the email notification with the actual video in my library.  Today alone, I was missing 9 emails and videos from before 11:00 am this morning (East Coast time) - then just a short time ago (9 HOURS later), 5 of those missing emails and videos showed up, but 4 are still missing...

    This has become the new "norm" for me.  Unfortunately, I believe even the Arlo team engineers can't fix it, because why else has this been going on and getting worse for weeks and weeks now??!! <sigh>

[ant]

Yep, my e-mail notifications are coming in late (~15 minutes) again to show the new recordings. 😞

[jguerdat]

I generally turn off notifications but recently enabled them on one camera for testing.  I get app notifications immediately and email notifications very shortly after the video ends.

FWIW, I just got a low battery email, too, for 12%.

[Jimfr]

My Q has been working fine for about a week as regards video recordings/notifications, but yesterday, it misbehaved all day.  Several notifications were late (by about 45 minutes) and some never came (despite receiving push notifications).

Sure hope this gets fixed soon.

[mpho]

I've also had this happen randomly over the past week. I'd get a notification, the preview would appear on the Camera tab, but no video would be in the library. I'd try to refresh and restart the app, but no difference. The videos eventually appear, sometimes a day later.

[The-Wall]

My issues started after I updated my iPhone app to the v2.0.2 release on Feb 11th (Thursday).

[Schorschi]

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Jimfr wrote:

My Q has been working fine for about a week as regards video recordings/notifications, but yesterday, it misbehaved all day.  Several notifications were late (by about 45 minutes) and some never came (despite receiving push notifications).

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I noticed weird things happening with email notifications yesterday, too.

I wonder though if the problem was on the mail client end (Yahoo in my case) rather than Netgear (actually Amazon, the cloud host).

I looked at the mail header of one notification message that was delayed by about five and a half hours.

I'm using a mail forwarding service called Pobox, which redirects all email to my Yahoo email address.

The mail server information in the mail header seems to indicate that the mail was delivered after two seconds:

Yet, I received it at 3.22 early the next morning.

Strangely, there is one other field in the mail header that reflects that arrival time 5.5 hours later:

The above is GMT, so subtract 5 hours to get EST: 3:22:41 AM.

So, it may not be Netgear (or actually the cloud hoster, Amazon) who are responsible for the delay.

I'd suggest people copy and paste their mail headers of delayed messages into a mail header analyzer and see where the hold up is. I used Message Header Analyzer to output the above.

[iSage]

    You only get an email alert (if you choose to get email alerts at all), only once the motion video hits your video library.  The video library is server-based (Netgear's server), in Netgear's cloud. 

    It  doesn't even matter if your email provider is down and not working - as long as the Netgear cloud server is working correctly and the motion from your ARLO camera is detected, that video should show up just about instantaneously in your library.

   BTW... my husband chooses NOT to get ANY alerts (email or push notifications), while I choose to get both.  When the Netgear cloud server is working correctly, he can see the videos on his phone's app, and I can then see them in mine, as well as on my iPad and desktop computer.

   I've been missing email alerts and videos since the end of December 2015, but the last 4 weeks has been the worst.  Someone else posted in another thread here that as he was veiwing his videos in his library, they actually disappeared right before his eyes. I've never encountered that problem - I just don't always get the videos even after motion has been detected and I get the push alert.

   Additionally, the phone app has nothing to do with not getting email alerts and corresponding library videos either.  Whatever Netgear changed when they forced that update on us back in December, they need to change back!!  Because I never had a problem with missing videos or email notifications before that time.

[Jimfr]

Yes, the issue isn't really the notifications, it's the fact that videos aren't showing up in the video library.  I have two weeks to return my Arlo Q; I hope this can be resolved soon.  I have to be able to rely on a camera.

[Huevosgigantes1]

Interesting problem. Unfortunately, with info I can only ask questions. I'm just grasping. What kind of cell phone? Smart phone? Flip phone? What kind of cell service? 2g, 3G, 4g, LTE? Does your your cell carrier "throttle" your speed? If "ordinary" emails are sent, do you get those? Or are those delayed, as well. If not- it may not be your cell carrier, but rather a link, or links in the World Wide Web. For Netgear, to resolve this issue; (possibly, another company's) as you already know, may take a while. They are at the mercy of existing processes created by various company(y/ies) to resolve reported trouble related issues.
I wonder where the Netgear servers are located.
Good Luck

[ant]

Today's motion recordings sure came late up to an hour. 😞

[Schorschi]

I'd suggest analyzing the full mail header to see where the delay occurred. Google “Message Header Analyzer“, try the one hosted on Microsoft.com, and copy and paste the mail header into their text window.

It will show you the time it took to deliver the message and should show you where it hung.

It's sometimes a little tricky to decipher that when looking at the header directly due to various timezone offsets.

[iSage]

Schorschi ... How would "analyzing email headers" have anything to do with the fact that motion videos are not showing up in the Library after getting a motion push notification alert??

Once the video shows up in the Library, then the email is sent with an image of that motion. No video in Library, no email

I have mine set to send me email to 2 different email accounts on two different servers (gmail.com and aol.com).  Whenever it's actually working correctly and motion is detected from any of my 3 cameras, and the video actually gets to my Library, I then get an email notification on my gmail accout and my aol account at the same time.  As I have said previously in this thread, even if your email server is down and not working at all, the video will still show up in your Library, even if the email notification can't be delivered.

Again, the problem has nothing to do with email servers/email time stamps/etc. The problem is server-side from Netgear's cloud servers.

[Schorschi]

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iSage wrote:

Schorschi ... How would "analyzing email headers" have anything to do with the fact that motion videos are not showing up in the Library after getting a motion push notification alert??

Once the video shows up in the Library, then the email is sent with an image of that motion. No video in Library, no email

I have mine set to send me email to 2 different email accounts on two different servers (gmail.com and aol.com).  Whenever it's actually working correctly and motion is detected from any of my 3 cameras, and the video actually gets to my Library, I then get an email notification on my gmail accout and my aol account at the same time.  As I have said previously in this thread, even if your email server is down and not working at all, the video will still show up in your Library, even if the email notification can't be delivered.

Again, the problem has nothing to do with email servers/email time stamps/etc. The problem is server-side from Netgear's cloud servers.

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I think we have so many different error scenarios being reported that we're losing oversight and end up comparing apples to oranges. I was only trying to point out a tool to check for the cause of delayed emails.

I've had a delayed email notification from Arlo (that I reported on earlier in this thread) that clearly appeared not be delayed at the origin mail server.

Also, no video appearing in the library does not necessarily mean the video hasn't been created. I can routinely create a scenario where I get a push and email notification, but the video does not appear in the library (though only when viewed with the Android app).