Doorbell video recordings are black

This just started happening to me this past week. My RSSI was around -60, which seemed like a large value, so I got a Wi-Fi repeater and installed it near the front door. I then reconnected my doorbell to my network to ensure it was connecting to the repeater. RSSI now shows at -36.0. However, I was still unable to connect for a Live View, and recordings were still showing up black.

I saw another post that suggested removing the device from the app and going through the setup all over again. So, I did exactly that - deleted the device from my app, reinstalled the app, connected the Ring doorbell as if it were a brand new device .

This seemed to slightly improve the issue, but it’s still a long way from fixed. About 2/3 of my motion-detected videos are completely black. My Amazon Echo Show has so far been completly unable to make a connection when I ask it to show me the front door. I can get a connection from my phone once every three to four tries; when my phone isn’t able to show me a live view, I find later that there is a “Live View” event in my history that has a black video. The app on my Windows 10 PC has about the same failure rate as my phone (it will show “Connecting” for a few seconds, and then just drop back to the device view instead of showing video). Videos that are all black, are all black no matter where I attempt to view them (phone or PC, app or website). [None of these problems existed last week.]

The Ring app has a function to check the Wi-Fi speeds, so I did that standing right next to the doorbell, and I got just over 20Mbps download and 5Mbps upload, which is well over the 1Mbps recommended. I fixed the signal issue with a Wi-Fi repeater. The device health page is showing that it is hardwired at 100% battery, and the firmware (checked 55 minutes ago at the time of this post) is up to date. Everything looks like it should be working.

I see that this issue has been posted a few times, but most are marked as “Solved”; but the solution doesn’t seem to be working for me.

Hi @YakkoWarner. Thank you for providing that detailed information. We do have a Help Center Article here that has some tips and tricks for black video. Even though you have a good RSSI, there can still be some adjustments that need to be made to your router to eliminate the packet loss that is causing the black video. If you’ve tried the steps listed in the Help Center article, then please reach out to our support team so they can help you get this issue resolved. Please give our support team a call at one of the numbers available here. We’re 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-19 here to see how to contact support.