Nighthawk LTE hotspot + automatic firmware nightmare

nhantenna Blanca_O shizam76 JasonN: I reported the same problem back in January in this post. As you'll see, I found that I needed the battery installed for the automated firmware update to proceed. On Friday (6th July 2018) the same thing happened again. I lost internet connection via my Ethernet connection to the M1 (with intermediate Ethernet switch) and when I investigated this, I found that the M1 had no blue or amber flashing LED - it appeared to be down. I tried tapping the power button to no effect. I removed the power cable (USB C to Anker QC 3.0 charger) and then plugged it back in. The M1 LCD screen indicated that there was an update in progress, displaying a progress bar. Seconds later, the M1 went dead again. Having experienced this behaviour previously (see above linked post), I put the battery back into the M1 - this was already charged to around 80%. The LCD screen then displayed the update in progress message with progress bar. The latter didn't move smoothly - between intervals of what seemed like minutes, it jumped to new positions. The M1 appeared to reboot a couple of times and finally, the progress bar reached 100% and the upgrade was successful.

My provider is EE in the UK. The updated firmware and bootloader are now NTG9X50C_12.04.02.0.0 with a build date of 2018/06/07. The GUI is now MR1100-100EUS_04.01.67.00. The new features include the option to disable Ethernet Standby, which would otherwise occur after 2 minutes of Ethernet inactivity. Arlo support is also added.

Prior to the update, my firmware was NTG9X50C_10.22.03.00 with a build date of 22nd Nov 2017. Comparing these version numbers, it looks like EE customers in the UK have probably missed out on a few intervening firmware updates, but it's impossible to know exactly what's going on because Netgear still haven't bothered to publish change logs / update histories to support their customers more effectively, as I requested back in January in this post. So much user frustration could be avoided by COMMUNICATING with your customers in an upfront, timely manner - tell people what you're about to do and give precise details of what bugs have been fixed and what new features have been implemented. This will inevitably result in happier customers and increased sales. It's a no-brainer - I'm just astounded that you aren't getting this message NETGEAR.