Nest cam won't play back video events, just shows "buffering" circle

[Mr_Doh]

We have a Google Nest Cam with floodlight mounted on our house. This worked fine for a few months, but now when I tap any event in the event history, the window that should be playing the event just shows a blur with a "buffering" sort of circular arrow. The live camera stream is fine, the camera just can't show the video that is associated with an event, even events within the last 3 hours. Our Google Nest Aware subscription doesn't expire until October. So I'd like to know if there's a solution to this problem...if I can't solve it, well, no need for the hardware, I'll have to replace it.

I ran the Google "Troubleshoot event video history" troubleshooter and it ran all the way through and found no problems. Don't know what else to do, other than to toss this whole piece of junk into the trash. I've already replaced the Google Doorbell (Battery) with a eufy model due to late event notifications; i.e. apparently unpredictable event turnaround tiimes at the Google servers. So this is within my expectations of Google's product quality, unfortunately. I spent over $400 on this Google crap all told, plus a subscription to the event history storage, with no gain in security from it. Just frustration.

Is there anything that I can do short of giving up on this high quality product? Sorry for the level of frustration, but I'm just tired of Google products not doing what Google says they do. No more Google products for me, just want to get this one to work.

[Mr_Doh]

The only thing that I can think of is to cancel Nest Aware, and then re-subscribe and see if that does anything. Not a lot to lose, other than $60 more *sigh*.

[MplsCustomer]

@Mr_Doh 

If canceling and re-subscribing your Nest Aware subscription would fix the problem, that would seem to indicate a problem on Google Nest's servers, and Google Nest should then reimburse you.

This failure to play back events has been reported by other customers as well, but it doesn't seem to be a universal problem. (We don't have the issue.)

Do you by any chance have Google Wi-Fi or some other mesh Wi-Fi system? I'm asking only because it seems at least some customers reporting these kinds of access issues also have mesh Wi-Fi.

[Mr_Doh]

No mesh, I have a very nice Asus GT-AX6000 that gives me whole house coverage. The Google cam is on a repeater, a RT-AX3000 in my garage. Works really well. At least, when the Google cam is working. I also have a Roku on that repeater and it streams like a champ. Good thought, though. We’ve had great Wi-Fi here since I switched from Netgear to Asus.

[MplsCustomer]

@Mr_Doh 

Maybe, just maybe, Google Nest's cameras don't work well with wireless repeaters.  (It seems they may not work well with mesh Wi-Fi either.)

This is just speculation on my part, but I keep reading posts like yours where customers have problems accessing their cameras.  We have long used 2 Linksys routers that are configured as wired access points, connected to our Xfinity router, and we don't have any of the access issues reported in this forum.

[Mr_Doh]

Good point, but doesn’t address why it worked well before it failed. Wi-Fi should be Wi-Fi, after all. I’ll check it out, but I’d be stunned if that was the problem. Worth looking at, though.

[MplsCustomer]

@Mr_Doh 

Perhaps I'm just grasping at straws trying to find an explanation.  It's too bad that Google Nest doesn't ask some questions of customers on these posts in an effort to identify what factor or factors might be triggering or contributing to the problem.  Instead, customers are on their own to figure it out.

[Mr_Doh · Accepted solution]

Well, figured it out for the time being. Need to keep an eye on things more than I thought, though. During my testing last night, finally rebooted the both routers, the repeater and my main router. That got the camera's downloading going again...all the uploaded events were at Google, so the uploads were working all the time. Now the downloads are working as well, and I can view them. I'm sure that rebooting the repeater somehow fixed the problem, since I've rebooted the main router very recently when I flashed some new firmware.

Also noticed (after midnight) that the camera was triggering every minute or so since about 10PM last night until I got the camera download working again, and tracked that to a spider weblet in front of the camera. Just one string of a spider web across the camera view that was blowing in the wind, and the camera was, with all of it's powerful AI, interpreting that as a vehicle. Cleared it with a broom, and no more triggers until morning, today. And still working this morning. Guess I'll keep it *smile*. Although I'm not real happy that it is so vulnerable to a very common outdoor thing, part of a spider web.

I should know better by now, not the first thing to do when troubleshooting, but high on the list. Reboot the router that the client in question is connected to. So my fault. Still would much rather have a floodlight cam with local storage, but this one's working again so making the best of it *smile*. Until I find something better...looking at that eufy floodlight cam now.

[EmersonB]

Hi everyone, 

@Mr_Doh, thanks for reaching out here in the Community. We appreciate your efforts in explaining here your issue about your Nest Camera and your experience about the steps you have done to resolve it. In case anything comes up, you know where to find us.

I appreciate the help, MplsCustomer.

Regards,

Emerson

[Mr_Doh]

Hey there, I've moved on from the Google Nest Floodlight Cam to the eufy Floodlight Cam. This was after I found out that Google's okay with leaving their floodlight cam broken for 3 months...unacceptable for a security product as far as I'm concerned. I've already given up on the Google Nest Doorbell (battery) some time ago due to late event notifications, apparently because of unpredictable server turnaround time. I guess that I expect security products to be functional, not toys, sorry about that. So I've voted with my feet and dollars, and will not be using any Google Nest security products again.

[EmersonB]

Hello Mr_Doh, 

We're sad to see you go and this is not the experience we want you to have. We appreciate you sharing your thoughts about this. I hope we can make it up to you in the near future. Let us know if you have additional questions or concerns.

Best,

Emerson