Ring Doorbell 2: "This footage is unavailable."

I have been looking back at the footage log and notice minutes after activity (like me leaving or coming home -therefore triggering the motion sensor ) the footage becomes unavailable. Most times until there is motion(me coming back home )
The fact that this happens every day and therefore if I am gone or no motion for many many hours , my footage is unavailable
How can this happen DAILY! Anyone know why ?

I also have also developed this issue today. This is not an app issue as I just installed the app on an iOS device and the problem is still there.the doorbell has been working flawlessly until today. It appears to have stopped for now. Was there an issue with the storage servers ?

Yes I spoke to a Ring rep too. The ring only records when the ring is being activated via motion detection or someone ringing the door bell. Therefore there can be multiple hours of unavailable footage. They did say they r working on 24/7 coverage in the near future !

Last week I changed the snapshot frequency to 1 hour. There were far fewer blocks of ‘unavailable’ afterwards. I’ve now disabled snapshot completely and there are no ‘unavailable’ blocks at all. For me at least an issue with snapshot and when the functionality is stable. No issues with other events (motion or ring).

I also just found around 30 min of “footage not available”. In the 4am hour this is not good These are crucial times that things could happen… Why is it that it doesn’t do this during the day it’s almost like they think we’re too stupid to go back and look at the night time… I’m very suspicious of this and it’s happening to all of us …it’s definitely not correct

so for those on this post of recorded video unavailable,

I have been doing some digging into what may be happening. (Please note my issue seems to have stopped in Canada Ontario for now).

So my assumption on architecture, is the footage is uploaded to a cloud server, the main reason for this to fail, from my experience in IT, would be either network issues with the ring device and the internet or a ring cloud server outage. (different locations will also be different servers)
I looked if there is option/hack to save the video locally but there is not. I looked in forums to see if you can use Ethernet not wireless to rule out wifi issues, again not.

so my understanding of the architecture, unless you are watching live, you are actually retrieving the footage from a cloud server.

so if my theory is correct, if you view the historical footage on any device phone/iPad/laptop, the issue will be across multiple devices for the exact same time as it’s all the same footage from the server.

so if this theory applies, To the unavailable footage, it rules out the app on the device and reinstalling it etc is a waste of time if the issue is across mutiple devices.

so my theory is one of three potential causes.

We all have glitchy internet outside our houses,

The ring network connection software has a bug,

The ring cloud server/s had maintenance and were not failed over (assuming a               failover server).

So replies/comments on what may be suspected causes I have given, are fine but not abusive/trolls etc.

Hi neighbors. Thank you for this information. Can you let me know of the following:

• Confirm you have an active Ring Protect Plan set up
• Confirm your snapshots were not deleted.
• Are all of you receiving the screenshot a neighbor previously attached? With a black screen saying ‘This footage is unavaliable’ ?

There was a problem on the 26th it seems with this. Ring status shows this here.
https://status.ring.com/

I have an active ring protection plan. I don’t delete my snapshots and snapshots have never worked properly in the daylight hours since I got my Doorbell 2 a few months ago.

From dusk to dawn, all my snapshots appear normally with no breaks in them. From dawn to dusk there are large areas of black with “this footage is unavailable” text (see attached screenshot). While the times this occurs differs from day to day, it happens consistently.

It only is an issue with snapshots. Motion detection and doorbell rings work as expected.

I have no idea what neighbors have to do with this. These are all snapshots automatically generated by the Ring Doorbell. According to the settings, these are supposed to happen every 14 minutes (see second screenshot), but that’s obviously not happening during the day.

• Confirm you have an active Ring Protect Plan set up: Yes
• Confirm your snapshots were not deleted: No (they weren’t)
• Are all of you receiving the screenshot a neighbor previously attached? With a black screen saying ‘This footage is unavaliable’ ?: Yes

Note: Volume of deadspots decreases with Snaphot frequency setting:

  • 14 mins - Virtually constant deadspots from circa. 08:00 - 17:00 (GMT)
  • 1 hour - Sporadic small deadspots circa. 08:00 - 17:00 (GMT)
  • Snapshot disabled - No deadspots
    • Outside of 08:00 - 17:00 (GMT) = No deadspots
    • No router, ISP issues seen at any time issues were apparent
    • Devices (Router/Ring) running latest firmware

Were you able to find the source of the problem? I now am experiencing the same message.

@cma3306 wrote:

Were you able to find the source of the problem? I now am experiencing the same message.

No. When I first spoke to support a few months back they initially suggested a Wifi issue, which doesn’t make much sense since a snapshot (image) doesn’t requre as much bandwith as a motion detection video, which works all the time. Also my WiFi works consistently day and night, while this problem only occurs during the day (between around 7 am and 6 pm).

The second time I spoke to support they said it was an experimental feature and might have bugs. That was before they added settings for it to the app and listed it as a feature, so I’m assuming it’s release now which means that explanation is not valid either.

Since the problem appears to based on the sunrise and sunset times based on the times I mentioned back in November, I’m wondering if light screws up the snapshots somehow. I won’t be able to test that theory until the summer when the day is much longer than it is now. If the times are the same despite the sunrise/sunset times, then the problem has to be server side.

I have been experiencing long block of unavailable footage, I get the notification on my app of the motion detection but it goes into a black block with no snapshots no video, my signal on the router is beyond strong, why is this happening, if it is a bug on the device, please have this fix ASAP, no paying premium subscription for unavailable footage.

So I see a lot of people were having this issue in 2019. Well now it’s February 2020, is there a fix yet? From 2:50AM last night to 8:40AM this morning I have no footage from my front door. I don’t live in a terrible area, but we have had issues near us over the years. Many of which have happened during the night time hours when my Ring isn’t working. When will this be fixed???

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Do you have the chime pro? The box plugged in with those antennas?

I have Chime 2.

Same issue. Installed a month ago, issue started in the last couple of days.

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Have the same issue for weeks now, last year it work okey, since the end of the year, the footage started to be unavailable every hour at night time, no even the photos are available, and yesterday my device when in freezing mode, no footage for over 13 hours straight, now it works randomly, whenever the sensor decides to work, I’m will reach out the company this week, improve the service or better yet, provide the advertised service or refund my money. Period

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• Confirm you have an active Ring Protect Plan set up: Yes, the Basic Plan
• Confirm your snapshots were not deleted: Snapshots were untouched.
• Are all of you receiving the screenshot a neighbor previously attached? With a black screen saying ‘This footage is unavaliable’? : Yes. In my case I activated this feature a week ago. Then my family noticed these spots in the timeline “This footage is unavailable”

I also experienced someone pressing the doorbell and it notified us through the app but there was only a black screen (assuming they covered it) until the video ended but there was no prior footage of motion detection that could’ve seen their face.

I attached screenshots of what mine is doing. These are just from yesterday. It’s not covered by anything, I have a protection plan setup, and I haven’t touched anything in the app in regards to deleting. It just isn’t recording during random times. They can be short mins or even hours.