Nest outdoor cam history scrolling broken

[Jordan1007]

I have a wired nest cam outdoor and a nest cam floodlight, as well as a nest cam indoor. Until today, when I went to go review each camera’s full history from the app, I could scroll through the feed and it would update in real time - meaning as I scrolled through, I could see different people coming/going throughout the day, different events happening, etc which would let me go through and search for something that may have happened. At some point in the last day or two, the app stopped allowing that - now when I try to scroll through history, I either get a frozen screen for a few seconds until it updates, or an image like what’s shown in the link below. What happened here? This was an extremely useful part of these cameras - without it, if the camera misses an event, it’s virtually impossible to go back through the feed to find it unless you have the exact time stamp. 

I’m assuming this must be an app bug, because when I try the same thing in the legacy nest app (my indoor cam is a legacy cam), the scrolling history feature works just fine. Anyone have any ideas? If this is permanent, i’m going to be making a permanent switch. 

https://imgur.com/a/5gBdq51 

[JillG · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone.

This issue has been escalated but I have a few questions and some troubleshooting-

Can you reply if you are on iOS or Android? Which OS version? 

Are you viewing from Google Home app or via web?

If you leave public preview in the Google Home app, do you still have this issue?

Double check if you got the latest Google Home app for those of you on iOS. It's currently rolling out but you can download it from the app store. The build is 3.30.102 fyi

If you could reply with answers to these I can send them over to the Google team-

Thank you all!

Jill 

[home_user]

Same exact issue here. Scrubbing through the timeline no longer works in the Google Home app (ios 18).

Either the image is static, or it is completely artifacted and incoherent. (Scrubbing seems to work on the Web app, though it is not as smooth and takes longer to load compared to how it used to be on the Google Home app.)

Any updates on this Google? The problem has been ongoing for at least a few days at this point.

[Zeemaker]

Same here

[TBCuthbert]

Any updates?  With no Google staff resources working here, how else do we get Google to follow-up?

[Jordan1007]

Yea and now it’s worse - now I can’t even load a live feed. 

[Sflk]

I have exactly the same issue. In the Google home App scrolling through history whilst viewing content is non- existent, yet transferring the same camera to the Nest App everything works fine. The issue is nothing to do with internet connection or WiFi, as I’ve recently upgraded to 1 Gigabit. Factory resetting the camera and adding back to the Google Home App makes no difference. I also have same broken pixelated image as Jordan.

[Scoops50]

Same here.  I cannot scrub anymore on the Google Home app. Frustrating.

[Glenb]

I am having the same issues, I can no longer scroll in the app

[George-19]

I am also having the same issue since about 5 days ago where I scroll on the timeline in the app and will see a pixelated image between captured events or just a frozen screen. When scrolling on the timeline on google home on the computer it works but is very slow compared to how smooth the app used to work. Spoke to google today and they basically had no answer and told me they will be looking into it. Definitely a bug in the app as I have two floodlight cameras that are both having the same problems within the app that happened same day and time.  Updates, restarting cameras and reinstalling the app did not work. 

[jsteel2988]

Same issue for me too. It has been at least a week that I cannot use the scrubbing feature. This needs resolved ASAP because I use this feature DAILY. Especially when I’m looking for something that might be outside of the cameras activation reach.

[Laurlun20]

I am also having the exact issue. It is either frozen when going through footage or I get the exact same garbled screen as original poster.  I know it isn’t WiFi as some of my outdoor cameras are on different WiFi’s. Very frustrating. 

[TBCuthbert]

Same here. The Nest cam video is distorted / pixelated when scrubbing. It seems to be ok once video starts again but challenging to position thru scrubbing. 

(also Associated Products under Additional options here for a post does not find anything?  Nest cam, Google Home app, ..??)

Nest cam pixelated for past few days when scrubbing…

[Sgilfillan]

Exactly how mine looks 😞

[TBCuthbert]

@David_K  fyi

[Laurlun20]

Just spoke with customer service. This is their response.
 “We actually encountered these issues Laura and the same as you, they can access the feed but can't scroll through it since it will freeze or either goes black. I also wanted to set a proper expectation here, that this one is an emerging issue for now and I know our engineering team still finding a fix on this one.Now I know that you already tried enough to get this issue fix and since this happened last 3-4 days and the same with the others, what I can do here for you is I will need to partner to partner your case to one of our engineering team to seek some assistance from them since I know that they are still finding a fix on this one. I've already documented everything here just to make sure that this case of yours will be taken care of.Just to assure you as well that I will be updating you on this one, I will be sending you a follow up email now so you still have a reference on this case.” The email I received said to all 24 to 48 hours to get an update from engineering team. 

[TBCuthbert]

🌟Thank you. This is a great update.  I will check back periodically. 

Cheers!😀

[Sgilfillan]

Thank you! Hope they fix it soon. 

[Scoops50]

If anybody figures this out,please let us know here.  Thanks

[Laurlun20]

Received an update. It seems to be the basic “unplug and plug it back in”. I had already factory reset one camera with their tech support. I keep trying to explain it’s all the cameras, not just one.   Anyone find a way to resolve while they continue to work on this issue? Here is a copy of the email I received. 

How are you? I hope that you are doing fine the moment you receive this email. I am from the Senior Support Team and I will be handling this case as my colleague, Cristy is out of the office. Through this email, I inform you that your concern has been reviewed by the engineering team and they provided some steps you need to do that might resolve the issue, please exhaust each step below:

 Remove the device out of the Google home app 

 Uninstall the google home app 

 Factory reset the device 

Reboot mobile device 

Install the Google home app 

Set up device 

Monitor device to see if the issue still continues 

If the issue still persists, please reply to this email for further assistance. 

None of these steps worked for me

[home_user]

This is very likely not a camera / hardware issue. The fact that it just recently started occurring and is happening on video playback (and is isolated to the Google Home app and doesn't occur on the Web app) would indicate a software issue in possibly the Google Home app or Google's servers.

I am surprised there has been no fix by Google yet still. I wonder if they are even aware of the problem.

[Jordan1007]

Completely agree. It’s can’t be a hardware issue when it started happening to all cameras at the same time, and doesn’t not show any issues via the nest app or online. There is clearly a software bug related to the app and I truly hope google fixes this soon or I’m going to have to replace all of my cameras.  

[George-19]

These steps did NOT work for me either, which I had tried a day after this exact same issue occurred. When I spoke with a support member I let them know that these steps did NOT work for me and they need to look into their app for the solution. The problem is definitely somewhere within their app on their side and Not on the user side.

[Bolszowy]

Same issue with all of my nest cameras. Very frustrating. Hope they fix it soon. 

[djdwis]

I am having the exact same frustrating issue. This issue is critical for me to monitor my property as my neighbor is involved with drugs. “Events” are not 100% reliable enough to capture what I need. 

[Laurlun20]

So frustrating! They know it’s a software problem on their end. They told me it’s a new problem and the engineers are working on it. So why they sent the email with the lame stuff to try, which I already did with tech support, I don’t know. They pretty much said, thanks for letting us know it didn’t work. I’ll get back to you. 

[Laurlun20]

I just got another email, they want to see the invoices for my cameras. Have no clue what that has to do with their software issue. Beyond silly!  That’s where I am at with them. So aggravating. We should get a credit for all the days it hasn’t work. The web version loads so slow, it’s as useless as the app. 

[TBCuthbert]

---

@Laurlun20 wrote:

I just got another email, they want to see the invoices for my cameras. Have no clue what that has to do with their software issue. Beyond silly!  That’s where I am at with them. So aggravating. We should get a credit for all the days it hasn’t work. The web version loads so slow, it’s as useless as the app. 

---

Not sure why they are giving you such a run around. It does not seem like software engineering is involved yet? They need to look at last app update. 

[TBCuthbert]

My Nest cams are loading slower and struggling to move up/down thru the cam history along with pixelations and green screens ... hmm. 

[TBCuthbert]

 @JillG     can you arrange for an update. please see @Laurlun20 updates. And comments from everyone else. This looks like something with the last app update a couple of weeks ago. Thanks.

[JillG]

Hi ya @TBCuthbert 

I did escalate this to a Community Specialist. Thanks for the heads up.

[JillG]

Hi all---

Our Specialists have informed me that this has been raised over to the engineering team and will post any updates here.

Thanks so much for all the info!

[Laurlun20]

This is the latest response. This will not work, but I’ll let them try. So many with the same exact issue that started at the same time. It’s just ridiculous they are forgetting they told me in the beginning that this was a new issue and engineering was working on it, yet the deal with me like I’m the only one. Very very frustrating. They had told me first to check my WiFi. I already told them I have cameras different places, different ISPs and this issue was affecting all my cameras on the app.  Their next and latest  response is they will replace one of my cameras to see if that fixes his issue. So, I am waiting on new camera. 

[Deg]

Same issue here. Called CS and reset everything, still does not work! 

[djdwis]

I'm curious.  Is this an ios only issue or across all platforms.  I'm running ios 18.3.1 on I-phone 16 Pro and I am experiencing the issues noted above.

[TBCuthbert]

On Mac gear for me. Macbook, iPad & iPhone on current release. 

[Glenb]

On iPhone 16 pro with iOS 18.3 for me

[tomb333]

Same problem here. If i power cycle the camera, i can get 4-6 hours of scrolling history and then it is garbled again.  By monitoring network activity while using the app, it appears to only download a finite amount of history and then it stops downloading.  Uninstalling app and reinstalling makes no difference. 

[home_user]

This makes sense, so it would seem to indicate an app bug in that case. I've had pretty similar behavior, where scroll-able history is only available in ~4 hour blocks and the rest of the timeline is not scroll-able.

(Though I have not had to power cycle the cameras.)

[Jayklay]

I'm in the same situation. It started about a week ago. My cameras that are still on the Nest app are working fine. It's only the camera on the Google Home app that is having issues. Unfortunately installing this one camera on the Nest app wasn't an option. 

[George-19]

My cameras currently still are not working correctly ( its been around 10 days now since this issue began)....but yesterday 3/1/25 they did work for about 4 hours or so between 1-5 pm EST. Hopefully they are working to correct this problem and it was not just a fluke. Also I haven't received any follow up emails from customer support since my hour and a half phone call last weekend about this. Very frustrating!