I have a PAR38 bulb that I recently purchased from ring.com, but it will not function correctly. It lights up when plugged in, the ring app recognizes it when trying to do the setup, but the PAR38 bulb fails to connect to my ring bridge to be fully setup / accessible in the ring app. I have tried setup more times than I can keep count of over the last few weeks, changing the bulb name as well, but this PAR38 bulb does not work. I have 8 other ring lights connected to the ring bridge and they are all working correctly, with no problems.
Sorry to hear about this @b-ring! Understanding that you have had other Smart Lighting devices setup just fine to the Bridge, the best next step here would be to ensure the Bridge is well within range of this particular area for optimal connection. Please also ensure there are not any major appliances or electronics between the Bulb and Bridge that might be blocking connection.
I recommend double checking your mobile device for any changes that might have taken place since, such as VPN that might be enabled, or testing this setup on wifi connection versus cell data connection. With your other devices connecting to your Bridge just fine, this should be doing the same. If this concern persists, please reach out to our support team by phone, for more in-depth troubleshooting. Feel free to let us know how this goes! 
Your recommendations are all things I have already considered in my own experienced technical assessment, all devices involved are within 2-3 feet of eachother during the attempted PAR38 setup, and the reasons you are giving are defintly not factors with the PAR38 bulb not working.
same problem here. i ordered 10 par38 bulbs and two of them refuse to connect. the other 8 worked fine.
I have the same problem. One driveway light that has 2 sockets - one bulb works just fine so no bridge range issues. And there are 6 lights connected and working on the bridge.
Update on my issue - I ordered a new bulb and it worked. So I went back to the old bulb and tried again. It kept trying to update and failing. Then I held my phone 12 inches from the bulb during the entire setup and it worked. No idea if this will help anyone else, but it finally worked for me.
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After several weeks of the PAR38 bulb not connecting, and just letting the whole effort go for a few weeks, I came back to the PAR38 bulb to give it another try using the same exact standard setup instructions. And despite me doing nothing different, a miracle happened and the PAR38 bulb somehow took a software update and then starting working correctly. Ring needs to make a web / app feature for customers to self-service update / force a software update on devices, so problems like this can be more easily resolved. That was ridiculous that I wasted about a whole month of almost daily trying to get the device to work before it somehow autocorrected / updated the fault it had in the operating software.
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So I had the same problem with my lights. If you look at the length/width of the lights compared to the ones before, the ring lights are wider. For my lights, I realize that the ring head is bigger than the actual space to screw into the socket…so the lights were not connecting all the way for the lights to work/turn on. I purchased the socket extender from Home Depot for $2.89 each and they worked. Amazon also sells them in sets of 4 or 6 for as cheap as $7. Good Luck…and I hope this helps someone else with the same issue.
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