Ultra Cameras offline

[MrCat]

Says base station on line, cameras off line; happened early 25 Sep23.

Is Arlo down?

[JamesC]

The development team is currently investigating reports of this issue. The recent firmware release has been rolled back. Please restart your base station/SmartHub to allow your cameras to receive the previous firmware version. If you're still experiencing an issue, you may need to remove and reinsert the battery within the affected cameras to allow them to come back online.

JamesC

[Dgmi]

I’ve tried this procedure several times and still no luck. ugghhh

Some of my cameras seem unresponsive when pressing the black rest/sync underneath.

Does anyone know what the old vs new firmware should be?
I do have 1 of the cameras connected, just want to see if it’smon old or new firmware.

[JPC_77]

Apologies for direct reply but I wanted to contribute to this conversation and cannot find anywhere how to add to the thread— can you or anyone advise me how to do this within an already open post?

[Dgmi]

Thank you.

Do you know what the old vs new firmware levels are?
I do have 1 camera connected, trying to see if it’s on old or new firmware.

[AshTray900]

Mine ends in Bdb65f after update

[JPC_77]

Disregard previous inquiry as I was confused that reply was replying to the thread, not the individual. I too am suffering from the offline due to the firmware. I bought these recently in preparations for out of state travel and was overall happy with them. However this firmware update happened the day after I left, so now I’ve got no eyes on my property and will be gone for a month. As someone else mentioned, when I contacted Support yesterday they advised their teams were working on a resolve but had no ETR and just opened a case # for me. At a minimum, they should update their own post as to the issue since resetting the station does not work. If this is an issue where the cameras can’t align to the station firmware, I don’t get why they just don’t roll back the firmware so the cameras are once again in sync (I know someone mentioned that they had but there seems to be conflicting info on that). I am dumbfounded and incredibly angry by this entire scenario but appreciate everyone posting resolve ideas for when I return home. This is disheartening to say the least.

[JGonzalez029]

I took out the battery re inserted and no change. I removed camera and after a few attempts I was able to add camera then I get a notification saying firmware update needed when attempting to update firmware it then gives me an error message that firmware can not update and the device is offline.

[yoroh]

After spending several THOUSAND dollars on ARLO cameras and other add ons, I am very angry at the lousy ARLO service when Cameras are down.  My ULTRA Cameras ($ 300 EACH) have been down for over 24 hours due to an apparent software update from ARLO that caused all of these expensive cameras to go offline.  I tried all recommended fixes and when those failed to correct, after lots of hoops, I finally got onto the ARLO Chat group...only to learn that I am number FORTY THREE in line...which may take hours to clear. Netscape clearly knows that ARLO Ultra cameras are down due to negligence on the September 15 software update.  Why not staff up your tech support ASAP to deal with this issue?  What if there was a burglary or other intrusion on my property and no cameras were online due to no fault of my own.  FIX the problem now before nightfall on Saturday. 

[Grainfoot]

Yesterday all my ultra 2 cameras went offline. Pro 3 still working fine. Been off now for over 24 hours. I am out of free trial period next week, is that anything to do with the problem.

[djskyhawk]

Actually you need to hold the synch button until led flashes amber about 3 times, then slow blue about 3 times, then it flashed fast blue.  The fast blue is when it is synching.  After the camera synchs it will show in your camera list and say an update is available.  It would be nice if Arlo would send an email to subscribers and give them the fix, but they have no knowledgeable people there.  I checked with the BBB and found 63 pages of complaints and they all had the same response which said nothing.

[Dgmi]

Well this was an ‘unnecessary get to know my equipment intemately fire drill’ that took 4-6 hours of my life uggghhh

I think I got mine working followng the procedure provided .above.

Thank you very much for providing that procedure.

While I had to do this procedure numerous time, I finally got all my 9 cameras back online.

A few observations that I noticed was that ‘whatever happened’ it drained all my batteries.

1.make sure you  fully charge  your batteries

2. factory reset your cameras (did it up to 5-6) times on some of them

3. same with pulling the battery

Lastly, when the cameras finally connected it prompted me to perform the upgrade. Update took  a few minutes.

Hope this will help.

[Dgmi]

Well this was an ‘unnecessary get to know my equipment intemately fire drill’ that took 4-6 hours of my life uggghhh

I think I got mine working followng the procedure provided .above.

Thank you very much for providing that procedure.

While I had to do this procedure numerous time, I finally got all my 9 cameras back online.

A few observations that I noticed was that ‘whatever happened’ it drained all my batteries.

1.make sure you  fully charge  your batteries

2. factory reset your cameras (did it up to 5-6) times on some of them

3. same with pulling the battery

Lastly, when the cameras finally connected it prompted me to perform the upgrade. Update took  a few minutes.

Hope this will help.

[mutwoyou]

This is ridiculous.  Have four cameras.  Got two of them to work, however, one of those stopped working.  Two of my cameras are completely bricked.  Can't get a single blue or yellow light when connecting the charged batteries.

[AshTray900]

Yep they screwed up big time, they release shoddy firmware, the method that they use to apply the firmware has shoddy fail safe recovery, and many times devices are irreparably damaged and you cannot fix them. Same issue about a year ago, some firmware was making them trigger every 5 seconds…

[SG54321]

Same here. Rebooted all basestation and then cameras were not working. Base station went from alternating amber/blue to blinking amber. Now I need get a ladder to reset all cameras to factory setting and reconnect and lose CVR history.  This is ridiculous. I will switch to back to google nest when they come out with their new cameras. Put all my 20 Arlos on eBay 

[Cove]

I’ve restarted both base stations multiple times, one is still flashing amber while the other is solid amber. I have removed the batteries from all cameras and reinserted. The entire system is still offline. I bought this system in January of this year, can I get a refund for something like this? I mean I’ve tried every suggestion and even factory reset one base station and two cameras. I don’t know what else I can do, but definitely experiencing buyers remorse.

[SG54321]

Restart both bases by disconnecting all cables and remove memory card. leave it for 60seconds. then plug them in. Now go to your app and remove all none function cameras. Then go each camera one by one, push sync button long enough that it blinks amber, once you release sync button it should blink blue. Insert it back in its housing and plug them in. Now add it to your Arlo App. Then update firmware and set all the settings you had previously.

[Sevakesmailian]

I have already restarted all the base stations, and I also had removed the batteries of the cameras put them back on. I’m still in the same boat. This is disastrous. I can’t even get a hold of technical support. I’ve been stuck on hold for over an hour.

[SG54321]

this exact sequence worked for me: Restart both bases by disconnecting all cables and remove memory card. leave it for 60seconds. then plug them in. Now go to your app and remove all none function cameras. Then go each camera one by one, push sync button long enough that it blinks amber, once you release sync button it should blink blue. Insert it back in its housing and plug them in. Now add it to your Arlo App. Then update firmware and set all the settings you had previously.

[darkness975]

Everyone, 

I finally got mine online again.  One of them I had to re-sync but the rest I didn't.  What I did have to do was reboot the base station and then I had to charge all of the ultra 2s since their batteries depleted to 0.  

Once I had them plugged in and they had enough juice to function again the app prompted to update the firmware on all of them. 

They are currently charging still. 

[ArloNB]

Did anyone had issues with its Arlo Ultra 2 since yesterday, September 15, 2023? My Arlo Ultra 2 cameras simple shut off in my account. All of them are power connected. I have just renewed my subscription a day before and it was working very good. Also, I have Arlo essential cameras connected to the same Arlo device, but they are working fine. 

[Matthj1]

Same here and nothing seems to work.  How do we get reimbursed from Arlo.  Otherwise I will return to Costco and get 2 brand new cameras to replace these and they will be Arlo’s problem.  Horrible lack of support and the fact that their engineers would roll out a software update and not perform in a test environment is simply inexcusable!!

[Salex]

Thanks for all the detail.  I was able to resend all my cameras except one.  They all were able to be reset and then I followed all the instructions in this forum.  One camera will just not reset and has this intermittent blue light that flashes, not fast but pretty slow.  Battery is fully charged.  Any ideas?

[MELCO]

Yes! All my Arlo Ultra 2 cameras are offline as of 9/15/23.  I re-started all my network equipment, all my Orbi WiFi and Arlo equipment... My Arlo Q, my Video doorbell and my chimes are the only devices online.

Arlo acknowledges this issue via this service note:

Ultra5 Cameras Offline

https://status.arlo.com/?start_date=2023-09-16
a day ago
Arlo DevOps team have identified some customers may see Ultra (VMC5040) cameras going offline with a recent software update. Customers with this issue need to restart the base station to bring the Ultra cameras online. We apologize for the inconvenience!

I tried as suggested above and re-started the base stations, however it did not help.  I have three base stations and 5 cameras down.  I even tried removing all of the batteries. I spent two hours on this today.  

When I chatted with Arlo support today, 9/16/23, they wanted me to remove all of my cameras from the Arlo app, reset all Ultra cameras to factory defaults and then re-install and re-configure all of my cameras.  I said not without being paid as all my cameras are mounted and it took hours to setup and configure all of my cameras, settings and motion zones.

This is not good.  Arlo support said that the Arlo engineers are working on a solution.  I hope so and I hope I do not have to re-configure my entire camera configuration again.

All my Arlo Ultra 2 cameras are still down as of 9/16/23 8:25 EST

[ArloNB]

Hello Melco. 
I have also restated my Arlo base device and nothing happened. 
To get things worse, I am 4000km away from my home, and I will not be back for the next 6 months. That’s why I installed the cameras. The only solution would be a remote action by Arlo. 
That’s insane and ridiculous, 

Expensive cameras that don’t work properly. 

[luxurylazarus]

Completely agree that this is an inconvenience. Arlo how do we reset remotely?