I have 4 V3 cameras at my Mothers house a few miles away. And a door bell camera. They have worked excellent for a couple years. Well a few days ago she lost the internet for 2 days. A large area went down for AT&T. Internet connected back. TVs work fine. All 5 cameras down. Most of the cameras are up out of the way. (hard to get to.) I did a quick n dirty and shut off the main to reset everything. Still all cameras down.
Then I went to the easiest one to get to and unplugged and plugged back in…. Still down. Ugh. I pulled up the router/wifi from my side and still has the same name and password. She said the AT&T guy came in and reset the router, but DID NOT mess with the TVs. So the setting should be the same.
Am I going to have to get a ladder and reset all the cameras?? Ugh, any other fix??
Unfortunately, it does sound like they will need to be reset. You have tried all the other things I would have had you try. If the username and password are the same as before, then I am unsure what else to do other than the reset
how to tell if he did a reset or a restart, but if she called the technician out they probably did a true reset, why it’s not affecting the TVs I’m not sure, but more likely just as was mentioned above by jason you’ll probably need to reset up the cameras.
For the second, I’d be interested in knowing what “reset” means in this context.
If you can go to your mother’s house and connect something (your phone, for instance) to her Wi-Fi using the same credentials as before, then I’m wondering if you’ve power-cycled or rebooted the router since the AT&T guy was there. That’s something I’d probably try first.
I’d do some of that and then try power-cycling whichever Cam has the easiest-to-reach power supply.
Pulled up her router…. I can access the AT&T page and bring up the router (built in WIFI) information from her account. It has the same user name and password as before.
AT&T guy reset…. I was not there and it was a large area that lost internet. The repair guy had to go inside homes and probably unplug and reboot routers. At least some, after service restored. My Mother said he did not mess with the TVs. The TVs are smart TVs and connected to the internet (streaming) via WIFI.
From my house I can sign into her account. When I signed into her account I was able to do a router/wifi restart/reboot. From my house yesterday.
This morning since there are cameras all over and I did not have a lot of time. I turned the main off for 10 seconds. That should have rebooted the router/wifi and all the Cam V3 cameras. No go. Then later today I unplugged one of the easy to get to cameras and seen the reboot red light. (on the camera) I tried accessing it an hour later and still shows off line on the app.
Ask away any questions… I tend to mix up the terminology.
The fact that they potentially factory reset the router makes me think there was some setting that was tweaked previously that now is not. Maybe they set the 5ghz band up the same (hence TVs working) but something is different on 2.4 (what the cameras use)?
Okay, that helps. I’ve done that. Their Smart Home Manager app also lets you restart a gateway remotely without having to have your phone on the Wi-Fi, too, and it can be helpful in showing which devices are connected even if you’re not there (unlike with something like Fing, where you kind of have to be connected to that Wi-Fi to see what else is online).
I don’t have any Cam v3s, so I’m not sure what specifically to mention there, but if by “turn the main off” you mean cut power to the house, then I’d still be inclined to reboot the only the gateway first and then give it a few minutes to complete (if you use its built-in Web interface, then it probably shows a 3-minute countdown), then power-cycle the closest Cam and see what it does.
You previously mentioned a doorbell. What model is that, and is it connecting to Wi-Fi like the TVs are? Is it just the Cam v3s that are problematic at this point?
That is a head scratcher…. I am not really familiar with it. I got on it through the AT&T website. So the app may be different and the website does not give me very much info especially 5. or 2.4 options. I will dig again. Thx
I believe that’s the Wyze Chime for the original Video Doorbell, and my understanding is that it makes a separate (~900 MHz range) wireless connection to the Video Doorbell. The Video Doorbell itself should be connecting to the home network via 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi.
Yeah, and for that you’ll have to be on the network or have Device > Remote Access enabled and know its external IP address and the port that’s open for it (so not something I’d want to leave enabled/open routinely).
I believe this is the case. The app gives you more information about what’s connecting to the gateway, and you can even use it to block or pause Wi-Fi access to specific devices (like a child’s tablet, which I think is one of the uses they tout for the app), but I don’t think it gives you individual radio control (like manipulating individual bands). For that, I think you’ll need access to the gateway’s Web interface.
When remotely supporting family routers I just have them fire up teamviewer and let me in, then hop on the router from their PC. No need to expose to the outside world. However that won’t work with a phone app obviously (would need a VPN for that). But if it has a web GUI that’s a good option.
Well I think we are on the right track… Appreciate your guys help.
The app did not do me much good. From that I seen the router did a factory reset and guessing the tech put the correct un/password in, but maybe not for 2.4
I talked to a guy on AT&T chat and he was not clear, but said was able to “fix” it.
I think tomorrow I should be able to power cycle the cameras if they are not working by then… With luck.
How long will cameras keep trying to access a Wifi network?
Yeah, I think that’s probably a better solution when it’s possible. Even with the AT&T gateways, unless you have something set up inside the LAN to tell you from the outside, I don’t know how you’d easily determine the external IP and port, because they don’t have any provision for something like dynamic DNS.
I have no idea what the “retry” frequency/duration is. With what little information Wyze releases about firmware updates, I imagine there’s some variability depending on the device and its firmware version, but I don’t recall ever seeing any numbers about that documented publicly.
I’m not sure if the v3s have gotten the firmware update that makes them reboot every 30 minutes when they don’t have a connection. If so you should know in 30-60 mins if it worked or not. If not I’d still think they’d connect up within a short period if the setting(s) have been fixed.
Of course I wouldn’t put much faith in ATT support either, who knows if they did anything at all…
If the router has separate networks for 5 and 2.4ghz then it is possible they got the password wrong for the 2.4 one, or maybe it reverted to some setting like “N only” which can interfere with some devices that need at least G/N mode.
You can run a DDNS client on a PC or NAS or whatever, but generally if you’re needing something like that, you’re probably not running an ISP gateway anyway and have one that has it built it.
A lot of 3rd party routers now connect to a cloud server (similar to wyze cams) and maintain that connection so it doesn’t matter if your IP changes and you don’t need to open any ports. Still not something I’d really want to trust. Both my Ubiquiti and old Asus stuff supports this but I don’t use it. I have a VPN set up if I ever need to access my internal network.
Definitely sounds like you need to get into the router GUI and check the 2.4ghz settings. If you can get someone to run teamviewer, you can get on their PC remotely and log into the router’s web GUI from there.
First things I’d check:
Network name on 2.4 is the same as it was before (if it uses a different name)
Password is the same as before
Using the same encryption (WPA2 probably) as before
Wireless mode - in theory “N only” or “N/AX only” should work, but try B/G/N or B/G/N/AX or even “auto” to see if that fixes it. Some older N devices need the legacy modes enabled. I’m not sure if the v3 is old enough for that, generally things after like 2014 or so do not need that, but who knows.