Get Your Live Feed Back: A Canary Troubleshooting Guide
When you need to check in on your home, the last thing you want to see is a never-ending loading screen where your Canary's live view should be. Whether the app is telling you it 'could not connect' or the camera is showing as offline, this issue prevents you from monitoring your space. The problem is almost always related to a network connection—either with the camera, your home internet, or your phone.
This guide will help you systematically troubleshoot the issue and restore your connection to the live view.
### 1. Start with the Basics: Your Phone and Camera
Let's begin with the simplest and most common solutions.
- Check Your Phone's Connection: The problem might be with your phone, not the camera. Ensure you have a good internet connection, either on Wi-Fi or mobile data. Try opening a website in your browser to confirm. If your signal is weak, the live stream won't be able to load.
- Restart the Canary App: Force close the Canary app on your phone (swipe it away from your recent apps) and then reopen it. This can clear temporary glitches and establish a fresh connection.
- Power Cycle Your Canary Camera: This is the most effective single step you can take. Unplug your Canary device from the wall, wait a full 60 seconds, and then plug it back in. The light on the bottom will turn yellow as it boots up, and then solid white once it has successfully reconnected to your network. Wait a few minutes after it turns white before trying the live view again.
### 2. Check Your Home Network
If the basic steps didn't work, the issue likely lies within your home's internet setup.
- Verify Your Internet is Working: Make sure other devices in your home can connect to the internet. If nothing is working, the problem is with your internet service provider, and you'll need to contact them or reboot your modem.
- Reboot Your Modem and Router: If your internet is working on some devices but the Canary still won't connect, rebooting your network hardware can clear up unseen data conflicts.
- Unplug both your modem and your Wi-Fi router.
- Wait at least 60 seconds.
- Plug the modem in first and wait for all its lights to become stable (usually 1-2 minutes).
- Plug the router in and wait for it to fully boot up.
- Give your Canary a few minutes to automatically reconnect to the refreshed network.
### 3. Investigate Further
If you're still unable to connect, consider these other possibilities.
- Check the Canary Status Light: The LED light on the bottom of your Canary provides valuable information. A solid white light means it's online and connected. If the light is blinking white, it's struggling to connect to your network. If the light is off, it's not receiving power.
- Check the Canary Service Status: Very rarely, the problem might not be on your end at all. Canary maintains a service status page that reports any system-wide outages. You can check it online at status.canary.is.
- Router Settings and Firewalls: Ensure your router's firewall isn't blocking access to Canary's servers. This is less common for standard home networks but can be an issue with more complex setups. Make sure your router's firmware is up to date.
By following these steps from top to bottom, you can resolve the vast majority of issues preventing you from accessing your Canary's live view.