WAC510 Access Point: Cannot Update Firmware V4.0

[cosmolee]

I received a notice from Netgear that there is new firmware for my WAC510 Access Point, but I can't upgrade the firmware.

The first thing I tried was to use the "Upgrade Now" facility in the unit itself.  However, when I try to do this it always results in an error: 

"An error occurred while downloading the firmware file."  This is supposed to be the "It just works" option.  Fail.  Note to Netgear: you don't get points for including such a thing if it *doesn't* work.  I tried this multiple times over two days.  My internet conection is working normally.

The next thing I tried was to download the firmware from the Netgear website.  The file I downloaded is named "WAC505-510_V4.0.7.3.zip".  I un-zipped it, then un-tarred the enclosed tar file.  [Seriously Netgear, what's with all the compressing with multiple types of compression programs?!  Don't make us use more than one type expansion utility.  But I digress...]

That leaves me with a file named "wac5xx-ubifs-root.img".  I ran `md5` on the file and the checksum is good.  However when I click "Upgrade" the unit responds "Select a valid firmware file format."  Well hmmm, that's the file format Netgear provided to me - what's that about?

Any suggestions on how I get this thing to upgrade?  BTW, if anyone at Netgear is listening: This is NOT a good customer experience.

TIA.

[RaghuHR · Accepted solution]

Hi @cosmolee

Looks like you have taken the logs after the AP reboot. If you see this issue again then please take the detailed logs and send it to us. 

It looks to me there might be temporary network issue which caused this error. This we can confirm only when we look at the logs. 

Since your issue is resolved you can mark this thread closed by clicking " Accept as Solution"

Thanks,

Raghu

[RaghuHR]

Hi Cosmo Lee,

Is your WAC510 is managed by Insight Manager App?  What is the current firmware that you are running? Please download the detailed logs from monitoring page and share with us.

Regarding your manual update- Once you download the WAC505-510_V4.0.7.3.zip file from web and you need to do unzip this file to get WAC505-510_V4.0.7.3_firmware.tar.  There is no need to do further unzip of this file. You can use this file for manual upgrade.

Thanks,

Raghu

[cosmolee]

I am not using the Insight app.  

Current Firmware Version:  V3.1.0.12

I tried doing a manual update from the tar file.  I get the following message.  Why is it saying that it is going to downgrade the firmware and reset my configurations?  That's wrong - I'm not downgrading the firmware version and I don't want to reset all my configuration work!

"Downgrading firmware: Configurations will be reset. Device will restart broadcasting new SSID AP-1st-Floor / Password 'sharedsecret' Do you want to continue ?"

When I tried to upgrade from the "Upgrade now" button I kept getting an error "An error occured while updating the firmware" - see screenshot.

I finally was able to fixt the problem by rebooting the AP.  Not a smooth experience...  😞

Thanks,

Cosmo

[RaghuHR]

Thanks for the additional info. Could you please share the detailed logs ? ( download from the monitoring page)? 

Regards,

Raghu

[cosmolee]

Ah yes, I tried to attach it with the previous post, but this message system would only let me attach a single file.  Doesn't seem to be anything of interest there though.

Attached...

[RaghuHR]

you can upload into google drive or any other web tool to share the files.

Thanks,

Raghu

[RaghuHR]

Do you have detailed logs for us to debug? otherwise you can close this thread.

Thanks,

Raghu

[cosmolee]

Hmmm, that's weird, I attached it with the reply where I wrote "Attached..."  Let me try again...

Now the system is telling me that the only valid extensions for attachments are "jpg,gif,png,pdf".

The filename is produced by the unit is named "wac510_logs".  So Netgear's own community portal won't accept logs from its own devices?

I converted to pdf, it should be attached this time.  There doesn't seem to be anything in the log referencing the firmware update error. 

In the future the solution for anyone having the same problem as this seems to be to do what I did - which is to reboot the unit.

Thanks,

Cosmo

[RaghuHR · Accepted solution]

Hi @cosmolee

Looks like you have taken the logs after the AP reboot. If you see this issue again then please take the detailed logs and send it to us. 

It looks to me there might be temporary network issue which caused this error. This we can confirm only when we look at the logs. 

Since your issue is resolved you can mark this thread closed by clicking " Accept as Solution"

Thanks,

Raghu