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New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:14 am
by Ericnepean
I just brought home a new TS419PII and for starters installed 1 Hitachi 2TB drive. I downloaded 3.7.1 to my computer, but the NAS would not accept the the zipped or the unzipped file. Tried downloading twice.

So then I downloaded 3.6.1 and successfully upgraded the 419P to that.

Then I tried using live update in the NAS to upgrade to 3.7.1. I received a message that the update was not successful.

The TS419 log said that the upgrade was successful, but now the TS419 system log won't display any messages anymore (even though it says there are 21 messages, including 3 errors).

Is this a known problem?

This product seems to be very unreliable.

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:30 am
by Don
You upload the .img file and not the .zip file. When you say it would not accept it what do you mean? What messages did you get?

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 3:20 am
by pwilson
Don wrote:You upload the .img file and not the .zip file. When you say it would not accept it what do you mean? What messages did you get?
Don's advice is accurate, and can be confirmed by checking the Firmware Upgrade section of the Turbo NAS User Manual.
Turbo NAS User Manual ([url]http://docs.qnap.com/nas/en/index.html[/url]) wrote:
Image

Before updating the system firmware, make sure the product model and firmware version are correct. Follow the steps below to update firmware:
  1. Download the release notes of the firmware from the QNAP website http://www.qnap.com. Read the release notes carefully to make sure it is required to update the firmware.
  2. Download the NAS firmware and unzip the IMG file to the computer.
  3. Before updating the system firmware, back up all the disk data on the NAS to avoid any potential data loss during the system update.
  4. Click “Browse” to select the correct firmware image for the system update. Click “Update System” to update the firmware.
The system update may take tens of seconds to several minutes to complete depending on the network connection status. Please wait patiently. The NAS will inform you when the system update has completed.
Step 1 is irritating, as QNAP does not provide a "downloadable" Release Notes file, but instructs us to download it.
Step 2 is accurate, but poorly worded (ie vague).
Step 3 is a very good idea, unfortunately many people choose to skip this step, (preferring to live dangerously, and disliking the results when it doesn't go well).
Step 4 is a little ambiguous, it tells you to select the correct "firmware image", but doesn't explicitly tell you to upload the ".IMG" file, extracted from the "ZIP" file you downloaded previously.

I hope this information helps.

Patrick.

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:40 am
by schumaku
Ericnepean wrote:I just brought home a new TS419PII and for starters installed 1 Hitachi 2TB drive. I downloaded 3.7.1 to my computer, but the NAS would not accept the the zipped or the unzipped file. Tried downloading twice.
Was this the firmware upload during the initial installation, or already an update after having started with the firmware image provided ?on the CD-ROM?
Ericnepean wrote:Then I tried using live update in the NAS to upgrade to 3.7.1. I received a message that the update was not successful. ... The TS419 log said that the upgrade was successful, but now the TS419 system log won't display any messages anymore (even though it says there are 21 messages, including 3 errors).
The logs are not volatile, without insight of the timing and the update process, it's hard to say. £However, the success/filure triggger for the GUI and the log entry is almost identical.
Ericnepean wrote:Is this a known problem?
In my optinion, there is a (lot) of room to enhance when it comes to the firmware update process. There is certain proof around, that things appear to be updated correct, but reality (ie. using some applications) unveiled things were not in sync. When a 3.7.x firmware update failed, it's possible the binaries and the libraies don't match. This can be fatal - as any further firmware install will struggle - regardless if this is an up- or donwgrade.

Please try the more verbose manual update to re-apply the 3.7.1 firmware:

- Ensure SSH access is enabled on the NAS, so you can login from your computer (NAS Web UI - function search: ssh)
- Login ot the NAS Linux shell from your computer (Windows: puTTY, OS X Terminal app: ä ssh admin@[NAS-IP-address]) using the admin credentials. There you can enter the commands (the [~] shows just the current directory, the # is the prompt.
- Use the manual update as documented here: http://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/Manually_Updating_Firmware - unless there is something wrong, only the steps 1-2-3 are required.

In case this process fails, please do _not_ reboot the NAS, and post the trancript of the process instead.

Should you see "lock_system_update" failures, check this: http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=1 ... al#p276031 (skip the intro...)

Should you see a "newver" error chech this: http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=1 ... al#p275614

If you are uncertain about all that - please contact QNAP support.

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:54 am
by P3R
pwilson wrote:Step 1 is irritating, as QNAP does not provide a "downloadable" Release Notes file, but instructs us to download it.
Well technically the release notes are actually downloaded if you're able to read them. Also when they as in this case are presented directly in the web browser. :wink:

But I understand your objection and I'm sure somebody native in the english language could improve both the user interface and all documentation a lot.

A much simpler improvement would be to have no direct firmware download links but only provide a combined release notes and download page, where the actual firmware links are on the bottom of the page. Of course they would also need to redesign the auto-update feature, which probably should be done anyway considering the many problems reported with it.

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:40 am
by Ericnepean
Wow! Thank you all for your helpful comments. What has happened since:
After writing my post I shut the server down, left it for 8 hours while at work, and started it up.

I see that although system status claimed 3.6.1 when I shut it down, it it now shows 3.7.1 So far so good, but 30 min after booting, the front panel continues to say "Starting Service Please Wait", and the system log definitely indicates Gremlins - I have 16 pages of log of the following message (which you can see is repeating every 30 seconds):
2012-07-11 20:27:31 System 127.0.0.1 localhost Re-launch process [lcdmond].
2012-07-11 20:27:31 System 127.0.0.1 localhost Re-launch process [bcclient].
2012-07-11 20:27:01 System 127.0.0.1 localhost Re-launch process [lcdmond].
2012-07-11 20:27:01 System 127.0.0.1 localhost Re-launch process [bcclient].
2012-07-11 20:26:31 System 127.0.0.1 localhost Re-launch process [lcdmond].
2012-07-11 20:26:31 System 127.0.0.1 localhost Re-launch process [bcclient].

Now having read all the posts on this topic, I can make the following clarifications.

I first started the NAS with the load which was installed in the factory, I think it may have been 3.6.0. With this Firmware it completed the quick install.
After trying unsuccessfully to load 3.7.1 from the .img file onn my MAC to the NAS, I did manage to load 3.6.1 from the .img file, and the NAS successfully upgraded to 3.6.1. The I used the firmware update facility in the NAS to download the 3.7.1 zip file from QNAP directly. Although initially this appeared unsuccessful since system info showed 3.6.1, , it now appears to have been partially successful.

I will now try the procedure with the SSH login.

But... what would be the objection to the long reset to put the NAS back to the factory configuration? (I have no data on the drives at this point)

Stuck Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 11:03 am
by Ericnepean
I ssh'd into the NAS per the instructions from the wiki.

(I'm a UNIX guy, 1st time LINUX user .. taking this slow)

[/share/Public] # unzip TS-419P_3.7.1_20120615.zip
Archive: TS-419P_3.7.1_20120615.zip
inflating: TS-419P_3.7.1_20120615.img
[/share/Public] # ls -al /mnt/HDA_ROOT
..
drwxrwxrwx 2 admin administ 4096 Jul 11 12:46 update/
..
[/share/Public] # ls -al /mnt
drwxr-xr-x 6 admin administ 1024 Jul 11 15:23 ./
drwxr-xr-x 17 admin administ 1024 Jul 11 20:25 ../
drwxr-xr-x 9 admin administ 4096 Jul 11 22:15 HDA_ROOT/
drwxr-xr-x 2 admin administ 1024 Jul 11 15:23 HDB_ROOT/
drwxr-xr-x 3 admin administ 1024 Jun 14 15:22 config/
drwxr-xr-x 7 admin administ 4096 Mar 1 15:21 ext/
[/share/Public] # mv /share/Public/TS-419P_3.7.1_20120615.img /mnt/HDA_ROOT/update/
[/share/Public] # ln -sf /mnt/HDA_ROOT/update /mnt/update
[/share/Public] # /etc/init.d/update.sh /mnt/HDA_ROOT/update/TS-419P_3.7.1_20120615.img
/sbin/lock_system_update: symbol lookup error: /sbin/lock_system_update: undefined symbol: lock_system_update
cat: /mnt/update/newver: No such file or directory

It looks like the update crashed due to an undefined symbol. Now what?

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 11:11 am
by Ericnepean
The system logs don't show any reflection of the attempted update (as expected). However I now have 62 pages of "Re-launch process [lcdmond]" and "Re-launch process [bcclient]" messages, and the LCD still shows "Starting Services, Please wait"

Although I can connect to the network shares and upload files.

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:34 pm
by schumaku
Eric, As mentioned before....
schumaku wrote:Should you see "lock_system_update" failures, check this: http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=1 ... 31#p276031 (skip the intro...)

Should you see a "newver" error chech this: http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=1 ... 1l#p275614

If you are uncertain about all that - please contact QNAP support.
Of course, without date on the NAS, you could consider to wipe the disk drives (ie. externally or overwriting the partition area with dd) and restart from scratch. Will take aou much you longer, and still leaving a risk of say 0.05% or sos you will be hit again by the same issue.

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:12 pm
by Ericnepean
OK, thanks schumaku, I'll try to edit update.sh . I'll have to read up on vi first.

If its not to much to ask, I have a few of questions.

If one executes the "advanced" reset that resets the NAS back to factory configuration, does this also set the firmware back to the original version?

You mention that I could overwrite the partition area with dd : do you mean to overwrite the partition table, or to overwrite the partition of the drive being used by the OS? I did try dd /help, but its not clear to me what arguments I would use for this action. (I don't have the facility to overwrite externally)

Is it normal for the "man" and "info" commands to be not working i.e command not found?


Thanks again for your help.

Eric

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:49 pm
by schumaku
Ericnepean wrote:OK, thanks schumaku, I'll try to edit update.sh . I'll have to read up on vi first.
No need - I've done the (not-so-hard) job for you 8):
=====
Limitations: This is intended for users experiencing the Re-launch process [bcclient] error in the logs - which is typically caused by a binaries vs. libraries mismatch from previous failed updates to v.3.7.0 and/or v3.7.1.

A. Upload the attached ZIP to the NAS Public share, ie. \\[NAS]\Public
B. Upload the firmware image (.img - the content of the ZIP archive) to the NAS Public share, ie. \\[NAS]\Public
C. Ensure SSH access is enabled on the NAS, so you can login from your computer (NAS Web UI - function search: ssh)
D. Login ot the NAS Linux shell from your computer (Windows: puTTY, OS X Terminal app: $ ssh admin@[NAS-IP-address]) using the admin credentials. There you can enter the commands (the [~] shows just the current directory, the # is the prompt.
E. Change the current directory to the NAS Public share:
[~] # cd /share/Public
F. Optional: Check the firmware image cksum, compare with the cksum in the Notes of the http://www.qnap.com - Download section of your NAS model. The first number marked bold is the checksum, the second is the file size – TS-419P firmware used as an example here
[/share/Public] # cksum TS-419P_3.7.1_20120615.img
54380152 148006491 TS-419P_3.7.1_20120615.img
F. Extract the attached
update-no_lock_system_update.zip
archive:
/share/Public] # unzip update-no_lock_system_update.zip
Archive: update-no_lock_system_update.zip
inflating: update-no_lock_system_update.sh
G. Backup and replace the update.sh in /etc.init.d :
[/share/Public] # cd /etc/init.d/
[/etc/init.d] # cp update.sh update-original.sh
[/etc/init.d] # cp /share/Public/update-no_lock_system_update.sh /etc/init.d/update.sh
H. Use the manual update as documented here: http://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/Manually_Updating_Firmware - unless there is something wrong, only the steps 1-2-3 are required. Needless to say - at the end compare the checksum, and do _not_ reboot if the process does not succeed.
=====
Ericnepean wrote:If its not to much to ask, I have a few of questions.
You are welcome to ask. I appreciate people inquiring first!
Ericnepean wrote:If one executes the "advanced" reset that resets the NAS back to factory configuration, does this also set the firmware back to the original version?
thee is no "original" version stored on the NAS, no need to IMHO.
Ericnepean wrote:You mention that I could overwrite the partition area with dd : do you mean to overwrite the partition table, or to overwrite the partition of the drive being used by the OS? I did try dd /help, but its not clear to me what arguments I would use for this action. (I don't have the facility to overwrite externally)
Using the process above, this is really not required, ie. for the first drive /dev/sda (sdb sdc ....):
[~] # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
Ericnepean wrote:Is it normal for the "man" and "info" commands to be not working i.e command not found?
Well, this is an embedded system, the compleete firmware is ~150 MB - while a "complete" Linux distribution does span multiple DVD.

Regards,
-Kurt.

Success Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 7:34 am
by Ericnepean
Thanks to coaching by schumaku today I successfully upgraded to 3.7.1

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 2:55 pm
by Paul4444
Hi all

I'm having a very similar problem. I have just received the 219PII and I am attempting to get through the quick initialization wizards. Everytime I try to upload the new firmware I get the error message saying "The image file is incorrect or firmware update failed. Please check the image file and try again." I have 2 new 2TB WD hard drives that haven't been used in any other system before. After reading the forums the firmware update seems to be a common problem when first setting up the NAS. My first question is if I haven't even reached the completion of the initial setup will the above fix work and is this the only way as I have never used Linux before and can see that this may be an issue. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Paul

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 9:43 pm
by Ericnepean
Hi Paul
If you click the "System" Tab of your TS219 web interface, and then the "System Information" subtab, it will tell you what firmware revision is currently installed. If it doesn't say 3.7.1, then the upgrade hasn't been installed yet.

When I was upgrading, I had the same experience - I could not upgrade by uploading the file from my computer - the upgrade was only successful when I allowed the NAS to download the file from QNAP using the "System Administration" --> "Firmware Update" tab.

However, I don't think the update to 3.7.1 really gave me any significant benefits over 3.6.1, and I note that 3.7.1 is not listed on the QNAP SW downloads page. http://211.78.87.225/download.asp

If was to do it all over again, I would load Firmware 3.6.1, and wait for QNAP to post something newer on their SW Download page.

Also, I would uncheck the "Enable Live Update" option on the "Live Update" tab, otherwise the NAS will keep trying to update to 3.7.1

Re: New 419PII with Firmware issues

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 11:46 pm
by Paul4444
Thanks

When I go to support the 3.7.1 update is available for download

http://www.qnap.com/useng/index.php?lan ... 51&sc=3377

I will try the system adminstration method and if not install 3.6.1

Thanks

If anyone else has an alternative solution, the help would be appreciated