Can't make ANY device work

Cameras
,
1

I am struggling big time with a Base Station and some devices that connect to it; and also with a wifi Battery Cam Pro (actually, 4 of them). Everything worked mostly well for years.

Then, all of a sudden, NOTHING worked any more.

I have gone back and forth with tech support and tried dozens of times everything that was told to try. On one occasion I also submitted the logs.

The Base Station fails as it just keeps blinking blue without ever turning solid blue at the last step, when according to the official literature that is expected to happen.

The wifi camera never finishes setting up, it gets stuck at the third and last step in the process, though the camera appears in the Devices list on the app. Trying to get a live view fails at step 1 and dies with error -15.

I have tried installing over my primary network, my IoT network, my Guest network; and also on the Apple wifi. The base station with a known good patch cable, as well as wirelessly. The base station also sometimes would go into its own Guest network mode. Tried all of my four wireless cameras. Tried rebooting the router (Verizon, their most recent one) - but not also the Verizon modem and ONT. Tried the base station in wired mode on each router. Kept wiping out the cache in the app, deleted the app and reinstalled on various Apple devices, some iPhones and some iPads, some newer and some older. Did on MacBooks as well. Deleted the base station and the camera in the app more often than I can remember, as I’ve been working on this almost daily for some weeks now.

Interestingly, while (for example) the wifi camera is in pairing mode, it does show active in the router; pinging it returns success. Yet as soon as it ends pairing mode, it also drops off the router and switches to inactive status.

Also, factory resetting the devices does not always looks and sounds the same, even though I am going through the same routine; for example, the wifi camera sometimes also briefly turns on the two red LEDs at the top, while sometimes also the two spot lights at the top, and in these cases there are also clicking sounds such as relays typically make. But on most occasions, resetting just quietly turns on the yellow LED and then flashing yellow-blue and going into pairing mode.

I tried adding a wifi camera from another vendor and it worked every time, on every network, without a hitch.

Well, other than rebooting the Verizon modem … I don’t know what else to try. Anyone out there with a fresh idea?

Any input is welcome and appreciated.

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Why not try that, it only takes few minutes to reboot? Other than that I can’t help you with anything as I don’t own the base station.

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Base Station, for the Battery powered WYZE Cam Outdoor?
If it is flashing blue while connected via ethernet that means it can not connect to the 2.4GHz Network. My does the flashing blue about once every four or five months so I just power cycle it via a smart plug and it connects again. The issue posted above sound like a Verizon router issue to me. All of my WYZE gear uses only the 2.4 network. Does the Verizon router have one SSID or different SSID for the 5.0 and the 2.4?

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You have certainly tried everything that I would have tried.

I like playing with WiFi and create some of my own problems just to see how to fix them. I keep a couple of spare routers that I don’t leave running. I use them as needed. I use them as needed for something like this.

But I recommend this to see if it helps. If you have an old, simple router, if you don’t look on ebay and get something used. Don’t spend a lot, is my point.

Use your existing SSID and password. Shutdown your current router and stand this cheap one up. Use if with the purpose simply to get the base station and camera back on that SSID and password. Once they are up, and work, shut down, unplug the cheap router, and put your good one back online. Give your devices a few minutes, maybe even restart them after the good router is back up. Good to know if this works, though it doesn’t explain the problem, sometimes, getting past the problem is more valuable. Hope it helps.

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Impressive but time consuming.

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What Router and provider do you have?

Apparently, there is an issue with a router causing issues like this. I am going to search and see what I find about it.

Also, can you provide what iOS Wyze App version you are using?

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Yes, it is. You are so very right. But far more fun and educational that watching reruns of I love Lucy and Friends.

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Thank you each and all for your input.

@habib : A very long time ago I rebooted my modem/ONT and had issues coming back online for days. I just tried to exhaust all other options first. But, eventually, I ended up rebooting it last night and it came back online without problems.

@Antonius : sorry for the confusion my long story may have created. I am using a mixed setup: on the one hand, there is a base station and some cameras connecting to it, and othe other hand I have a number of wifi cameras which work independently of the base station. I was not able to install/setup either option. As far as I know, all of my Wyze devices always used the 2.4 GHz band. And you was right that the problem was with the router (read below).

@Sam_Bam : your idea is useful, though I do not have an older router and this time around I figured out the solution to my problems using my existing router (read below).

@spamoni : Yes, router issue, as you suspected.

So THIS is what happened. For a fairly long time, I used to use a G1100 (black) fios router until very recently when, as part of a plan upgrade, I switched to their newer CR1000A (white) router.

As part of setting it up, I pretty much replicated on the new router the settings I had been using on the old router. That included setting the Advanced → Security & Firewall → General → IPv4 Settings from Normal Security to High Security. No other significant changes made.

In my troubleshooting, I never gave this a serious enough thought because up to a point everything worked on the old router with this choice being set so, and for many years. Or so I recall. My Wyze issues started while still using the old router and continued with the new router.

But then what I noticed next was that WhatsApp suddenly did not work on WiFi, but worked on Cellular. Interestingly, it didn’t work regardless of the Cellular setting, if the WiFi was On. For it to work, Cellular had to be On and WiFi Off. At this point all fingers were pointing towards my router.

I orderly rebooted everything and - crucially - reset the router to factory defaults. Once fully back online, I tried WhatsApp on WiFi and it worked, and I tried installing the Battery Cam Pro camera on WiFi and it worked!

Then I started tweaking again various settings in my router while checking again at every step, until both WhatsApp and the camera stopped working when I chose High Security instead of the default Normal Security.

Now, what this all means, and why only WhatsApp and Wyze balked at the High Security setting, I do not know (yet).

I hope my long story helps others who encounter a similar problem. And, once again, thank you for your help.

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That indicates that your ISP had issues, modems should bounce back after a power failure.

Because High Security settings closed additional ports that WhatsApp and Wyze use to communicate with their servers.

Glad you figured it out.

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@JohVog

Glad you figured it out. If I can add my 2 cents worth.

Many ISP supplied routers and many non-isp routers have these “high security” settings. Unless you are a corporate IT Admin, a consumer should never use this setting.

Why?

Back to my firewall baseline. All outbound ports should be allowed, all inbound ports blocked, unless you are port forwarding.

When you select “High Security” this changes the outbound ports. Typically only allowing the well known ports to make outbound connections.

i. e. Pop mail, IMAP mail, browser and a few others that I can’t remember. The rest of the outbound ports are closed and this is where you ran into issues.

This is only useful in a corporate environment where you do not want outbound connections being made by every app or program on the planet.

Bottom line. Never select “high security”. It will break things.

p. s. If your brain isn’t spinning from all of this look up “Ephemeral Ports” :grin:.

Glad you sorted it out.

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@habib
I rebooted everything and all came back to life nice and smooth, no issues. In doing so, I rebooted in order of devices being more removed from my ISP first.

@ronl4625
Interesting all that which you say, for me at least. I have started reading up on all this stuff and it is fascinating (to say the least). And a pretty steep learning curve, I should add. Thank you for your “2 cents worth”.

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FYI, This is somewhat preventive maintenance on your home network. Its often going to fix marginal issues that are not clearly a problem yet. And doing this cost you no money. I like to think of it as two steps. Step 1. At least once a month, turn your router and your cable modem off. Wait about two minutes and turn the cable modem on. Wait about 1.5-2 minutes, then turn the router on. This allows the cable modem a fresh internet connection a fresh DHCP lease from its domain/DNS servers. There’s also with almost every electronic device a memory leak issue, with Windows its prominent, but lots of other device such as cell phones have it too. Think of its as erasing the whiteboard and starting fresh. Step 2, when you have had a Internet outage and some of your devices won’t come back online, won’t reconnect, remove their power. I don’t simply turn them off if they have a switch, I try to remove power and plug back in. But now having called this Step 2, let me add Step 1. What I mean to say is, when I have had an internet or power outage and lost Internet, I perform a Step 1 and a Step 2, after Step 1 is back up online. Lots of my IoT stuff reconnects, but if it does not, I do the Step 1 and Step 2 with as many of my devices as I can on the Step 2. Hope that makes sense.

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Thanks. I will do this while keeping notes and comparing outcomes.

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