How to Fix Black Screen on the VIOFO Dash Cam App’s
Live View Mode

A lot of people have encountered the black screen on the VIOFO mobile app, along with the assumption that it’s due to outdated firmware, app glitches, hardware, or power issues. While these are rare but possible factors, the typical reason behind that black screen is your smartphone not taking to the wifi network of the camera properly.

The solution is simple – just turn off your cellular data or switch to airplane mode! While VIOFO doesn’t have an official statement about this yet, this is your smartphone "turning down" the WiFi source, since the dash cam doesn’t provide a true WiFi connection.

Whether you’re using an Android or Apple smartphone, the steps are similar. Simply go to the settings of your phone, locate the “Cellular Data” section, and toggle it off. Apple phones, for example, have a quick switch to airplane mode at the home menu of the phone’s settings, and can even be found in the easily accessible phone widgets section. Airplane mode will disable your Cellular Data, though sometimes it will turn off your WiFi too, which you’ll need to toggle back on.

After this is done, reconnect to the VIOFO app, and see if the live-view is up and running! If not, try relaunching the app, verifying your wifi connection to the camera, and ensuring the VIOFO App has the necessary local network permissions to connect.

The reason that disabling the Cellular data of your phone works, is because this prevents your phone from referencing the cellular data for an internet connection, which cannot be found with the dash cam wifi, as it’s not a true internet connection. Some phones will automatically switch from this untrue internet connection (The dash cam) over to the cellular data, not understanding the true purpose of the dash cam wifi. In this sense, this issue stretches to other camera brands with wifi networks as this is standard with how they operate, it just expresses itself in a unique way for VIOFOs.

We understand that going into the settings of your phone can be tedious to do, especially if you need to do so every time you want to connect to the wifi network. While turning off your phone’s data manually is a great way to diagnose the issue and show it’s resolvable, don’t worry, we have another permanent answer. 

Now, if you want a permanent solution, here’s another trick. For Apple devices, you may turn off your WiFi Assist Feature. To do this, go to Settings > Cellular. Then scroll down and toggle off  Wi-Fi Assist. For certain iPhone models, this will be located under Settings > Mobile Data.

On the other hand, if you’re an Android user, disable the Smart Network Switch feature. Open Settings, then tap Network & Internet. Select Wi-Fi, then tap the three-dot menu icon in the top-right corner of the screen. Next, select Advanced from the dropdown list that appears. Tap Wi-Fi Preferences, then toggle off Smart Network Switch to disable it. Android has a tendency to change this with different phone models, so you may locate this setting elsewhere, consider using the search function in your phone’ settings.

And that’s how you fix the VIOFO mobile app’s black screen. If you need help connecting to the VIOFO mobile app, you can check our complete guide here. Need help with your dash cam’s WiFi connection? You may also check our troubleshooting guide here.