I have auto-update on for may apps, and I suspect my Ring app updated recently (or my iPhone IOS did). But suddenly my Ring doorbell live view gets nothing but a black screen. History can be viewed just fine. Very weird. So I “chatted” just now with online support, and he suggested I try Rapid Ring (which I’d never heard of), so I downloaded that App, and it worked just fine! It is a stripped version of the Ring app, and only seems to do this one thing – answer the doorbell, or do a live view. I asked the chat guy if this was my permanent solution, and he said yes (!). He said what was going on was, and I quote:
“If there are interference with the signal the live feed needs a lighter version for it to work. That is why Ring provided a solution which is the Rapid Ring.”
So I asked if this were a known problem then, and he responded:
"It is not a know problem, but Ring made advance solution for it. "
This sounds ridiculous to me, and I suspect Ring had a bunch of bugs to figure out in the main App, so invented the stripped version. But this is the solution. For one thing, anything that speeds up the live view after someone punches my doorbell is worth it, as it took too long for it to come up. So I suppose I get something better from it. I still need the regular Ring app though for looking at history, managing other devices (I have the Chime, for example), looking at battery percent, etc, etc.