Starting several days ago my solar spotlight cam went black. Video playback is black and live view just says Activating Device. I have done speed tests - over 60mbps at the camera. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app on my iPhone. Verified on the computer that the video is black. Rebooted my router a million times and moved my WiFi pods around a few times. I created port forwarding. I put the camera in the DMZ. Checked device health over and over - RSSI is -57 or -58 most times.
I tried contacting Ring support and it gave me the option to Chat but then chat says setup and troubleshooting isnāt available.
Any other ideas how I can get my camera working again? Nothing changed at my house, but the camera just turned black - but still lets me knows there was motion detected.
Hi @Tsiawd. If the video on your Spotlight Cam is black and the Live View is not playing back correctly, Iād recommend reviewing our Help Center Article on correcting black video errors here. While you may not have manually made any changes to your router or network, there may have been an update that affected some of these settings which could be causing the black video.
If youāve checked over the settings and suggestions in that Help Center Article and the black video concern persists, please give our support team a call at one of the numbers availablehere. They can take a deeper look at your Camera to determine the cause of this concern. Weāre taking additional steps to protect our team and help reduce the spread of COVID-19, so this has resulted in longer than normal wait times. If you are outside of the US, please read our response to COVID-19here to see how to contact support.
Tsiawd,
Have you tried to do a hard āFactory Resetā on the Spotlight cam? Although I do not have a Solar Spotlight cam, I had encountered this similiar āBlackness Effectā on my outdoor Stick-Up plug-in cam. The Device Health showed everything was normal, the cam online, and yet it just recorded blackness. I did a Hard Factory Reset on my cam and it has been working normally ever since.
I have several cams and have done several initial setups and hard resets. I kind of found out what gave me the best results ā¦ at least this worked for me. The initial āSet-upā of your cam, and same for a āSet-upā after a hard reset, can be the most delicate process to ensure a glitch-free download process of updated firmware.
First insure your phoneās Location feature is activated on your smartphone. I even go outside so my phone can establish a good GPS satellite connection. Once your phone āknowsā where it is located, you can continue. On your cam, depress & hold the Orange reset button for least 30 seconds while power is on it. After you have released the orange button, the cam should enter set up mode again. Before you scan the ācodeā, check to see if your phone app is still displaying this Stick-up cam (from any previous set-up) and if it is still displayed, remove/delete that cam off your app.
Note: For a clean firmware update, when the cam enters the phase of Updating the firmware, donāt do anything ā¦ even if it says it is ready! Wait until your phone app steps by itself to the next part of the step-up process. Also check the Blue Cam light is no longer flashing, ā¦ and then wait a minute longer. Iāve just had better luck waiting ā¦ Iām just guessing, but I think the full/complete firmware update can take longer than expected (Iāve waited over 6 minutes) and Iāve had less future camera issues by waiting long enough before continuing the set-up, since the firmware still might be downloading. Itās just a gut feel ā¦ at least Iāve had better luck & less future issues with my cams by waiting (I have quite a few cams).
I hope the hard reset helps you.
Thank you. I tried a hard reset. Iām not sure how to tell if it actually reset. I have to physically remove it from the app and I physically remove it from my WiFi. I went through the whole setup and waited for it to step through on its own even though it says I can skip.
Device health says RSSI-56 and says everything is good but still have black screen.
@Tsiawd wrote:
Thank you. I tried a hard reset. Iām not sure how to tell if it actually reset. I have to physically remove it from the app and I physically remove it from my WiFi. I went through the whole setup and waited for it to step through on its own even though it says I can skip.
Device health says RSSI-56 and says everything is good but still have black screen.
OK . . . well . . . then, (scratching my head) . . . this advice is only from my personal experience, if a hard reset doesnāt solve the āBlack Screenā issue, itās probably one of two things . . .
Either the cam is just broken, and therefore your going to need to call Ring Support:
https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036196372-Get-in-Touch
OR . . .
Concentrate your trouble-shooting efforts with your Wi-Fi router. Wi-Fi issues that interfere with the high data-stream causes the most video problems. Yes, I know that you have a good RSSI signal number, but a strong signal connection doesnāt necessarily mean a good connection.
Check out one of the relies from this link by @DragonDave
You could have multiple Wi-Fi devices competing with your camera for a good streaming connection. Good luck. Let me know what eventually happens with your camera. 
@Boone wrote:
@Tsiawd wrote:
Thank you. I tried a hard reset. Iām not sure how to tell if it actually reset. I have to physically remove it from the app and I physically remove it from my WiFi. I went through the whole setup and waited for it to step through on its own even though it says I can skip.
Device health says RSSI-56 and says everything is good but still have black screen.OK . . . well . . . then, (scratching my head) . . . this advice is only from my personal experience, if a hard reset doesnāt solve the āBlack Screenā issue, itās probably one of two things . . .
Either the cam is just broken, and therefore your going to need to call Ring Support:
https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036196372-Get-in-Touch
OR . . .
Concentrate your trouble-shooting efforts with your Wi-Fi router. Wi-Fi issues that interfere with the high data-stream causes the most video problems. Yes, I know that you have a good RSSI signal number, but a strong signal connection doesnāt necessarily mean a good connection.
Check out one of the relies from this link by @DragonDave
You could have multiple Wi-Fi devices competing with your camera for a good streaming connection. Good luck. Let me know what eventually happens with your camera.
Here is an additional link to trouble-shoot the āBlacknessā and it includes router adjustments:
Wellā¦ still no video. I completely factory reset my WiFi/router. Remove the camera from the app and did the 30 second ārebootā and went through the setup steps again - but I noticed that during setup it asked if I wanted to connect to the same WiFi I connected to in a previous step. This makes me think that the camera isnāt actually factory resetting as it seems to remember the previous settings.
But either way - still no video. All black. Says it detects motion but can never go to live view and never can see the recorded video (all of which were still there even after removing the camera and factory resetting - not sure if itās supposed to still show that in the history after a reset and reinstall).
And realize that all this started after there was an app update just over a week ago. So I donāt know if that is part of the problem. Looking at reviews of the app, many other people say the exact same thing - that the video went black after the update.
@Tsiawd Thank you for sharing that update on how the suggestions from @Boone worked for you. You may want to try a new setup but choose the option not to connect to the same wifi network used in a previous setup. This will prompt you to select your wifi network and manually enter in the password, and some neighbors have had success with this regarding various connection concerns.
If that is not successful, please give our support team a call at one of the numbers availablehere. A member of our support team can take a deeper look at this black video concern and offer more advanced troubleshooting steps than we can offer here. Weāre taking additional steps to protect our team and help reduce the spread of COVID-19, so this has resulted in longer than normal wait times. If you are outside of the US, please read our response to COVID-19here to see how to contact support.
Called customer support and she logged into the device and immediately got an error message. She said itās rare to get this error so the device has to be replaced. Hopefully the new one will fix the problem.