Keypad stopped working

My entry keypad has stopped disarming the base station when I type in the keypad. This morning the stupid alarm went off, because my phone was updating the Ring app when I tried to use it instead.

I’ve called support about this and they had me factory reset the keypad. That causes the keypad to work exactly once. After that it doesn’t work again. I usually don’t have as much of a problem using the keypad to arm the base station. There is often a delay of 5 or more seconds between the time I punch in all the buttons and the time the base station seems to receive the signal. But when trying to disarm it, the base station doesn’t ever receive the signal. Anyone know how to fix this?

Hey @bsabiston. Do you see anything in the event history for your Base Station when you try to disarm your system via keypad? I recommend to go up to your keypad, put in your 4 digit code, then hit the arm button. Once it is armed, put in your 4 digit code and hit the disarm button. If this is still failing, you can go into the event history and see why it failed. It will tell you in the Base Station’s event history page if the pincode was incorrect, if it has trouble communicating and so on.

Also, sometimes when you re-add the keypad, or this may have been the case before, the firmware may need to be updated again or have been updated in the first place! You may have had a firmware update to the keypad this morning after you’ve re-added it. If you can, check for this update in your Base Station event history log as well. :slight_smile:

Thanks - I will try that if it happens again. This morning I called support and they said that my keypad needed a firmware update. They seemed to think that was probably the problem. So hopefully after updating the problem is fixed, we’ll see.

1 Like

Welp - that firmware update absolutely did not work! Now the keypad will not arm or disarm. The base station event history shows nothing, which isn’t surprising, because it seems like the keypad isn’t communicating with the base station at all… :frowning:

@bsabiston Is the keypad making any noises or saying “armed” or “disarmed” when you put in your 4 digit code and select a mode? If you’ve tried this a few times and the keypad is still unresponsive, please try pressing and releasing the pinhole in the back with a toothpick or something small, and then give the code another try to arm/disarm. If this continues to fail, definitely reach out to our support team here for a followup!

The keypad beeps when I press the numbers, but it never starts flashing red or says armed or anything like that. Yeah I’ve done the reset with the paper clip several times. After a reset, it usually works once, but later when I try it again, it is unresponsive.

@bsabiston Ahh, that’s definitely not good! I apologize again that the keypad seems to still not be able to communicate. Let us know if the support team was able to diagnose this further, or was able to issue a replacement if they were unable to help fix it!

any solution? I am running into the same problem and ring support hasn’t be able to figure it out :frowning:

Here is the thread I created this morning.

I’m having this issue as well

Hi neighbors! There are a couple of things to look into when having difficulties with the Ring Alarm Keypad. If your Keypad is online and your Access Code is not disarming your Alarm, follow these steps in our Help Center here on how to reset your Access Code. If your Keypad has fallen offline, follow these steps here on how to reconnect your keypad. It also has great information on why a keypad would fall offline and how to prevent that from happening again. If these steps don’t resolve this concern, you can follow up with our support team at one of the numbers available here. If you are outside of the US, please visit here to see how to contact support. I hope this helps! :slightly_smiling_face:

Hi,
I’ve just had this same problem today - where I’ve come home and tried to switch the alarm out of “away mode” back to “disarmed”. The key pad looks to be working (ie. entering the code and pressing the relevant mode button I get all the chirps and the key pad is lit up), but the mode didn’t change. With the entry delay counting down I had to disarm the system using the app. which was successful.This told me 3 things:-

  1. the base statiion is still connected to wifi and the internet
  2. the z wave connection between the door sensor and the base station was ok, becuse it triggered the entry delay
  3. the connection between the key pad and the base station was the likely issue.

I also noted that the long led indicator on the key pad was fully red - which isn’t normal, but the wifi indicator was not lit up (which is telling me that there was no connectivity issue…which is obviously not the case!)
I tried disconnecting the power cable from the keypad…but then I remembered about the battery back up so this wouldn’t reboot the keypad.
Under the advanced settings for the key pad I tried the “retry connection again”, but this didn’t work - presumably because the base station couldn’t send a signal to the key pad to restart or reconnect.
Everything else in the dashboard on the app indicated all the other system components were working well. It was only the keypad that showed not connected.
My next step was to select reboot base station under the base station advanced settings.
Once rebooted and the system was fully on line (about 60 seconds) the keypad started to work correctly.
There’s nothing in the event history for either the keypad or base station to indicate what went wrong or when.
I’m guessing that the z-wave connection between the base station and key pad was lost and couldn’t re-establish without a reboot of the base station.
This is the first time I’ve ever had this kind of problem after nearly 18 months of running this system.

My advice - try a base station reboot before trying something drastic like remove /re-add or reconfigure components if they lose contact.

Some back ground info on my system - the key pad is in eyeline of the base station approx 10 feet away. The base station is about 8 feet away from my home wifi access point and has stable connection. I’ve got 4 motion sensors, 2 contact sensors, 1 range extender in my alarm setup (as well as 6 cameras) so it’s hardly a busy system and it’s all operated flawlessly for 18+ months since install.

1 Like