Ring Alarm
Ring Alarm won’t recover from Cellular backup without manual intervention
After losing internet connection when WiFi went down, Ring Alarm went to cellular backup. The next morning, it was still on cellular backup even though WiFi was back online. I tried 15 times to reconnect to WiFi, I tried 4 different SSIDs in my house. I confirmed I could connect with other devices and had max signal at 10 feet from the router. Ring Alarm failed to connect every time. To get Ring Alarm back online, I connected my Ring Alarm to my router via Ethernet cable. This worked fine and I could now control the Alarm and installed devices, but then When the router restarted the next night, Ring Alarm lost connection to internet and went to cellular backup again. When the router finished rebooting, Ring Alarm stayed on cellular backup even though Ethernet had restored. I tried a quick unplug and replug of the Ethernet cable with no success, so I unplugged Ethernet for 30 seconds and then the Ring Alarm reconnected to internet and I was again able to access it. Is there any way to make The network Restore after cellular backup reliable without having to physically unplug a cable every time?
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12-01-2020 01:27:49
Responses (45)
- K
Probably the software is getting into a bad state, and the box just needs a simple reset. Unfortunately, this is not an option in the app when it's on cellular backup. That would be an obvious solution to provide a reasonable workaround (running a network cable to a box mounted high on a wall in a remote business is NOT a solution!). But, the real solution is to fix the flakey software so it cannot get into such a broken state!
•2
17-08-2020 06:07:12
SI have this same issue. The ring base station is on ethernet. I need to reboot my comcast xfi modem/router every few days, so i automate this with a zwave outlet. Every 3 days it turns off at 230am, then back on at 232am. Last night this ran, and my alarm base station never reconnected. Also, my Ring Stick Up Cam Elites which are running on PoE as well as ethernet for the data did not recover. All my other ethernet devices as well as my wifi devices (including a Ring Video Doorbell Pro) all recovered fine. I would really like a fix for this so I don't also have to reboot the PoE switch + Ring Elites + Ring Base Station.
•1
01-09-2020 03:41:57
- D
This is becoming an ongoing problem. Sometimes it reconnects to the network, many times it does not. I have 35 devices running and nothing else is reporting being down. I can easily reset the base station by pressing the pairing button, but this is becoming a nuisance and I am losing faith in Ring Products. I am not interested in resetting the Base Station constantly. It is a Wi-fi connection and I do not have a LAN connection throughout the house. I have moved the station numerous times. I am not sure of how to make it reliable. Is there any issue with just letting it operate on Cellular? Thanks Dave
•2
02-09-2020 11:30:31
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KMarley\_Ring, I have been a software and hardware engineer for 40 years, and I cannot overstate this: THERE IS A SOFTWARE BUG IN THE RING BASE THAT PREVENTS IT FROM RECONNECTING TO WIFI \*\*EVER\*\* IN MANY CASES! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE ESCALATE THIS ISSUE! THIS IS \*\*NOT\*\* USER ERROR, AND IS \*\*NOT\*\* A RARE ISSUE! MANY CUSTOMERS ARE HAVING THIS PROBLEM!! I installed a Ring at my small business some months back, and we have had many power-outages due to construction at the mall. Once the router powers off and the Ring Base goes to Cellular, it is VERY COMMON (at least 50% of the time) that it will NEVER, EVER reconnect to the WiFi once it comes back up. Many other devices, including Ring cameras, reconnect just fine every single time. The Base DOES NOT. Waiting for hours or even days DOES NOT WORK. The only solution is to press the reset button briefly on the Base, after which it finally reconnects. Incidentally, this is NOT DOCUMENTED - the reset button is documented only as holding it down for a factory reset that wipes all settings. Pressing it briefly to re-boot the device should be CLEARLY DOCUMENTED to save your customers frustration and fear of wiping out settings! Furthermore, it is not technically possible to "power cycle" the Base as you mention in your post, since it has a battery backup. You are confusing users by not talking about pressing the Reset button. Unplugging/replugging the power is what people will think you are talking about, but this is what CAUSES the problem, NOT how to fix it! Finally, it is EXTREMELY frustrating when support casually mentions connecting to Ethernet to test or solve problems - this can be very difficult to do. In my case, it's a remote business with the Base high on the wall very far from the router... talking a teenage worker through buying a 50' cable, unplugging another critical device from the router, climbing up a ladder, etc. is simply not feasible for me, and I suspect would be a very big hassle for a very large percentage of your users. It is very annoying for you to "highly recommend" this process so casually, like it's trivial to do.
•13
02-09-2020 07:00:26
KI would like to add that my confidence level in a software problem in the Ring Base causing this issue is 1000%. I would also like to add that ignoring reports of such a serious issue for at least 8 months is disgraceful. Yes, it's true that it's sadly very common for companies lately to (a) make it extremely difficult to get past completely useless Help pages and FAQs to report a serious issue to a human being, and (b) make it 99.9% likely that any and all reported issues will be completely ignored except for canned "have you tried power-cycling?" type responses. Still, for a company such as Ring to ignore such a very serious flaw in their single CORE product is absolutely, positively disgraceful. This problem should be addressed ASAP, but upper management should take a very hard and long look at how this was even possible. How did the bug get in, and most importantly, how was it not caught in testing? How in the heck are you not monitoring and reporting such issues so you can pre-emptively detect them? For every individual who has taken the time to report this issue, there are thousands who have experienced it. In fact, I bet that the vast majority of your customers who have had power outages or routers that have gone down for a time have experienced it... unless perhaps they have older firmware that does not have the issue. This is a VERY SERIOUS software flaw in your product!
•6
02-09-2020 07:14:37
KI completely agree.. These workarounds are hooky. I have also been in software dev and quality for many many years. For a security system, this is extremely poor standard and it makes for a fragile system which defies the reason it exists. I did reset my basestation after several instances of the base station dropping off the Wifi for days. Reseting the base station is unfortunately throws the entire system into an ugly limbo where you have to hard reset and reconnect all my 20 some devices. No graceful way to reset a base station!! Also, who uses ethernet cable these days. The support thought I was weird when I mentioned how difficult it is to run an Ethernet cable. At this point my system is down and I have to call again only to be frustrated by the 101 support steps. Maybe Email Jeff Bezos at jeff@ **amazon**.com or [jbezos@](mailto:jbezos@amazon.com)**[amazon](mailto:jbezos@amazon.com)**[.com](mailto:jbezos@amazon.com)
•3
01-10-2020 04:31:30
KI would like to add that we've had many power outages in recent months (late at night, due to construction at our mall), and lately the Ring alarm usually does re-connect to WiFi once power is restored and the WiFi comes back up... HOWEVER, it consistently takes the Base about 4 to 5 hours before it reconnects! I'll take 4-5 hours over Never anyday, but this still just makes no sense whatsoever. I'm guessing the software is coded to rapidly increase the interval between attempts as they fail, in an attempt to converse power. But, the algorithm is ridiculous if power being out for 1-2 hours causes it to then wait 4-5 hours before attempting again. Features are restricted when the Base is offline, and it's extremely annoying and inconvenient that it takes so long. I would suggest the unit should reconnect within 30 minutes if the power is out 2 hours or less, 1 hour if out up to 4 hours, 2 hours up to 8 hours, etc. However, it seems the max time to wait for re-connect should always be no longer than 1-2 hours. It's very hard to imagine any possible justification for that.
•1
01-10-2020 07:22:55
KBTW, pressing the reset button very briefly should reset the base without restoring factory defaults (although this is NOT documented). This worked several times for us when the Base didn't reconnect to WiFi for days.
•1
01-10-2020 07:24:53
- DB
Same issue here. My ex got the ring alarm and I help her set it up. Every weekend this thing is on cellular. It is an absolute joke that the response is to reset the unit. WTF. What if you are no where near the unit? That is the dumbest response ever. If I owned this system it would have been back already. You cannot run an effective security system that cannot reconnect to the network connection effectively.
•1
12-12-2020 09:49:51
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- R
Same issue here. Please users, if you are experiencing this problem, instead of just reading all these responses, take a minute to log in and post here so that ring understands just how expansive this issue is.
•1
19-12-2020 03:10:32
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- B
Same issue here. If the connection to the WiFi drops for any reason, the base station will often not reconnect without going through the network setup again. It doesn’t happen every time but I reckon it fails at least 50% of the time. All my other devices, over 20 of them, rejoin the WiFi after an outage except for the Ring alarm. I have tried fixing it to a 2.4GHz, a 5GHz and even a different AP but it makes no difference.
•1
19-12-2020 03:59:51
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kenbeckett
I have the same problem after a power outage. The WiFi has been up for many hours, and the Ring cameras use it just fine, BUT the base station does NOT no matter what I try. Rebooting the router does not help. The obvious solution to me would be to reset the Base station, but THIS CANNOT BE DONE because all device functionality is hidden in the mobile app when it's on Cellular Backup! This is a VERY SERIOUS SOFTWARE PROBLEM with the Ring Base Station!!!
2
17-08-2020 05:34:29
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