Ring Doorbell 2: "This footage is unavailable."

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.

Yes basic plan
Didnt touch snapshots
Same as other screenshots posted.

I talked to customer service about this issue and was told it was because the software was updating. Unfortunatley for me, it just happened to occure while a package was delivered that was later stolen because I hadn’t been notified it was delivered. :frowning:

Hi there,
I have multiple gaps in my Ring doorbell saying footage not available. Some of them are even 20 minutes or longer. Today I had about 4 different gaps. This is not the first time. Let me know what is to be done as this is not acceptable.
KR,
Andra.

Has this ever been resolved of responded to by Ring?

I have the same issue.

Any fix please Ring?

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I have exactly the same for and entire day and chunks of previous days. I installed this for extra home security it isn’t the most robust or reliable piece of kit. Unfit for purpose at the moment.

Look like they don’t want to fix it and they blame us the costumers. I think we can take some legal action if they are not willing to fix it.

Any thoughts?

I have the same issue, but it’s not at the same time every day. I have no photography or snapshots since noon yesterday. It won’t connect to Live View either.

Thank you for confirming this information with us neighbors! We appreciate the ongoing patience while we share this feedback with our teams here. Once you’ve confirmed your subscription is active and wifi signal is sufficient for operation, try removing and reinstalling the Ring app on your mobile device.

If you are unable to access any recordings, and not just the snapshot, please reach out to our support team for more in-depth troubleshooting.