Ring Security Cameras

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U
Spotlight Cam Pro - Firmware Update Breaks Wifi
troubleshooting
cs-support
wireless-security-cameras

I am going to write this out more like I would write a technical troubleshooting case with a vendor (long and detailed), more than a forum post or social media (short before people lose interest w/ limited attention span) I will have to contact support about this (again), but it would be great to get this seen by someone higher up that can really take the details and investigate, or find other users with the same problem to build a stronger case. I have a medium sized Ring environment at home, it has been up and working for years. Specifically cameras I have the Doorbell, and 4 Spotlight cameras. My newest camera is the only Spotlight Cam Pro and it was just about 1 year old when it stopped working about a month ago. Went thru the entire troubshooting process myself several times, basically it went offline and would not come back online. When I got on the phone with support they were able to see that the camera was trying to install a firmware update, and that it never finished, just over and over again (each time I did a full hard reset). They said it was a hardware issue, sent me a new camera. New camera arrives. Initial setup is great, until I get to the firmware update. When I get to the "please wait for the update it may take up to 15 minutes" the camera reboots, does its thing and never comes back online. It will seem like the camera is working, as it detects motion, kicks on the lights, etc. But it never reconnects to Wifi, and it stays offline in the App. If you try to join the camera to the wifi without doing a full reset, it never works it wont join, if you do a full reset, it connects to the wifi and starts the whole process all over again including re-downloading and installing the firmware update. Now having a 2nd camera, and still having an issue.  Statistically there is a higher chance now that its a network problem on my side than before despite having no reason to assume this before (All my other Ring devices are online and working fine, nothing blocked in my firewall, etc) So I go the extra mile. I double check that my Camera SSID is set to 2.4ghz only, and I turn off completly my DNS Blacklisting and Intrusion Prevention Systems for internet filtering. I carefully watch each and every step of the process while at my computer, watching my clients on my access points, watching my DHCP reservations as the device checks in, watching my internet traffic, and disabling anything that could stop/block any traffic. Same situtation. I contact support again, they see the issue, they hear the super extensive and technical troubshooting I have done, they send me a 3rd camera. Now with the 3rd camera. We still have the same issues. When the camera is new, I can connect it to Wifi fine. It shows up in the App Fine. I get a local IP address I can ping that local IP I see nothing being blocked to that IP going to or from the internet. The firmware update will start shortly after connecting the first time. After this first reboot to apply the firmware, the camera never re-connects to Wifi. I can watch the IP address working via Ping until the reboot and then never get back online. So its not a matter that the camera does not have internet connection, we are breaking at the connectivity level after the firmware update. Since this is my 3rd camera, I took it to another more extreme test to see if I could isolate the issue. I took my work phone, my personal phone and walked 2 blocks away from the house. I turned my work phone into a Wifi Hotspot and named it the same SSID with the same password as my home. I did a full reset on the camera, did the initial setup, got to the firmware update, and waited... and waited... and waited.  About 15-20 minutes later I heard for the first time.. "Setup Sucessfull" After the reboot, the camera updated and re-connected to my phones hotspot and then on my personal phone the camera was in the app and working! It made no real sense, nothing could be blocking the camera from the internet as I have full control over my firewall/router. It cant be a SSID or Password issue as its the same SSID on the hotspot as at home. It cant be a Wifi incompatability because the camera connects fine every time the first time it is setup, and it even gets to the internet to download the firmware update. It's something about the firmware update, making it no longer able to connect to my Wifi. However, now for the first time we have a fully updated camera, all I should have to do is go home and turn off my phone hotspot, and the camera would automatcially connect to my home wifi instead. And it didn't... At this point the same loop started again, the camera would not re-connect to my wifi despite having the same SSID and PW on my phone and all my other Ring devices working perfectly fine. Three times in a row, and thru various testing proceedures and troublshooting processes we have isolated and identified exactly what is breaking and when. It seems to be specific to the Spotlight Cam Pro, the recent firmware update, and my Wifi I have no Wifi security enabled that should cause this issue, but there is an issue somewhere. For reference I am using Zyxel WBE660S Access Points I have 3 of them in total, never more than 10ft away from the nearest access point the camera always had amazing signal strength. This is a Wifi 7 access point, so it has 2.4ghz, 5ghz, and 6ghz bands. But the SSID for my cameras is dumbed down because I have in the past seen Ring cameras struggle to join a SSID that has both 2.4ghz and 5ghz together.  Never had an issue with any other devices honestly but Ring cameras. So I hope that this can get escalated for advanged engineer level troubleshooting, I am also an I.T. Engineer and can work well with highly technical persons as I do it every day. If we cant figure it out, the only solution I can think of might be to "downgrade" me to a different model that does not have this problem, but I would need someone to OK sending me two cameras or something instead of one to make up the difference is cost. I am surely going to be a very rare customer using Wifi 7 AP's and enterprise networking/security products at home. It seems that there is straight up an incompatibility between this camera, my Wifi hardware, and the new firmware update. It's easy to point fingers in both directions and say it must be a problem with my access points. But, the fact of the matter is.  There is no issue before this firmware update, and there is no issue on any of my other Ring products, there are no settings I can tweak or change on the Wifi short of completly disabling Wifi security (open network no password) as I have made all other changes to ensure I am not running any advanced protocols, wireless bands, etc that would mess with the product.  So I am going to have to say this is a Ring problem, and can definitly say its a problem being created by Ring with the firmware update.

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8

1

17-06-2024 12:57:13

Responses (8)

  • J

    Hi @user_48b38c. Thank you for sharing your concern. In the Community, we can only offer basic troubleshooting steps for certain concerns. From what you have mentioned, it does look like you have already gone through the basic troubleshooting that I would have suggested. You have even gone through advanced troubleshooting as well. The next best step is to continue working with our support team to further investigate this with you. 

    0

    18-06-2024 04:26:39

      U

      I ran into exactly the same problem! Mine always stop at 95% and turn to left flashing white light… any recommendations?

      0

      19-06-2024 02:38:12

      J

      Hi @user_b78651. If you have tried the steps mentioned in the thread and are still having the same concern, give our support team a call for further asssitance.

      0

      21-06-2024 05:20:50

  • U

    I have a video doorbell (2nd gen) model 5UM5E5 doing the exact same thing since Monday the 17th. I am a network systems analyst and also got mine online using hotspot and apple's max compat mode setting. My home routers are Asus AX86u and AX58u. Just for troubleshooting I fired up my old mikrotik rb 2.4 g N router and got it working as a bridged AP. Same problem. Using wireshark to analyze a packet capture, I have narrowed it down to a faulty DHCP packet ack/nack. So the wifi is working. The dhcp client sends the request, my asus router sends the reply..it fails to set up, and this repeats every 30 seconds or so forever. Asus routers even have an option to turn on a wpad padding hack but that doesn't solve it either. I strongly suggest Ring revert the dhcp client back to the previous version and push that out to production and then work on fixing whatever is broken in the current implementation.

    1

    23-06-2024 03:14:35

      U

      Oh, I guess I didn't say the reason my troubshooting was so technical is I also used to be a network guy.  I was a Network Engineer once upon a time before I moved into Cyber Security.  If your right, it wont be a fix but it might be a work around would be to offer us the ability to set a static IP during setup of the device. That is such a normal thing to me and I am suprised they dont have it on these cameras.  I always set static leases for my equipment as my preferred way to handle things, but that unfortunatly doesnt fix this issue.

      0

      22-07-2024 03:59:11

  • U

    I am just updating with more information. I wish that someone would have listened to me from the start because I knew exactly what this was, and the only thing I am offered is to keep calling support and waisting more time. My issue has not been resolved yet, I still have a brand new Spotlight Cam Pro that wont work. Because it took so long to resolve this issue, and I needed a camera I just bought a Spotlight Cam Plus on Prime Day. Just exactly as I had expected, it works perfectly fine. Using the same location, mount, battery, solar panel, wifi, etc as I was trying to use before. I have definitive proof that there is an issue with the Ring Spotlight Cam Pro that prevents it from working for me, and it happened when the firmware change happened. That means the hardware is fine.  This issue needs to go to the people that design, test and release the firmware because the bug was not there until that firmware update and its fixable if I could just get the right kind of support.  At this point the time I have spent on the phone for support has cost me more time than the camera itself cost to buy.  Meaning if I was getting paid to work I would have been paid more money than the time I have waisted to get this camera working, and when the "fix" for me was to buy another camera.

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    22-07-2024 03:54:56

    • U

      48b38c_I am having the exct same issue.  My Ring environment has 1 stick up cam (works fine), one Floodlight Cam (2nd Gen)(works fineand might I add the farthest from my xfinity gateway.  And I have 3 Floodlight Cam wired Plus, which had been working fine for almost a year.  Then last Friday night at exactly 22:29:08, 22:27:08, and 22:27:39 respectively.  My suspicion is the same, they pushed a firmware update that bricked the cams.  Four phone calls with CSR's who just won't listen to what I have to say.  I can even see from the router side that the cams are actually connecting to my home wifi network, AND they have strong wifi signals.  I have even gone so far as to use my Surface tablet as a wifi hotspot with the same SSID and network password, and the devices connect to my hotspot.  BUT the CSRs DO NOT LISTEN.  Nor with they admit to pushing a firware or software update last Friday night. After the third phone call they told me I had to have an electrician check the circuits for voltage-so now I am out $100 for the electrician to tell me all of the lines to the devices are 120 V.  Are they going to pay for the electrician?  I think they should.  After the fourth phone call they are sending a Chime wifi extender for free.  The last experiment I am going to do is "remove" the cams from my account then try to set them up from scratch.  NONE of the three cams will enter set up mode pressing the button down for more than 20 seconds.  when I supply power to the units the 6 little red lights come on, then after about 15 seconds I see a rapid 5 flashes of white light then nothing more.  Then in a few minutes I see some images appear on the cam and are stored in history then it "seems" to become disconnected from the wifi again, even though the router says ther are connected. I am beyond frustrated.

      0

      15-08-2024 04:33:52

        U

        I am still stuck as well, I have had two firmware updates (for my wireless access points) since I started this thread and hoped maybe one of them would fix the issue and they have not.Only one model affected, all my old equipment and even newer equipment that is a different model has no issues, and I have had the defective model replaced 2x for a total of 3 different cameras having the same problem. At this point I have not called support anymore, the forums just tell me to call support and support is not eqiped to handle this kind of a technical issue.   There needs to be a path of escalation, or at this point refund me in full for the camera and I'll just use that for a different model. I have spent so many hours on the phone with support that I have "paid myself" in time more than the camera is worth, and why I have not even bothered to call back again.  I know its just a pointless time sink.

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        11-09-2024 05:57:06

    • H

      I have the exact same problem with 1 Cam pro and 1 doorbell 4. Everything else works and the 2 devices used to work. Ring team get this fixed !

      0

      06-10-2024 07:37:35

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