Nighthawk M1 Firmware Update Protocols

[hippolyte]

“Who among you would give your brother a stone when he asks for bread?”

My Nighthawk M1 has been hobbled since the last OTA update NTG9X50C_10.25.01.00.

I spent from 13 March to 21 March reading forums and home troubleshooting.

I spent from 22 March to 24 with my service provider Telstra, by chat and by phone Tech Support.

I asked for a repeat OTA to see if it was the process or the firmware. This is not possible, no explanation.

The Telstra Community Forum has Technical Support Device Testing results which strongly point to the OTA process being the cause. Referred me to the Manufacturer. 

Telstra  has been determined that my device is suffering a “major fault”, under Australian consumer law.

They initially offered me the remedy to send my device to them for testing with an exchange provided, then withdrew the exchange offer. Must be without device, I refused the offer.

After 2 weeks of negotiations (interrupted by Easter), and a formal complaint, I have now been offered a “Brand New Device” with a brand new contract and a waiver of hefty early cancellation penalty.

I will lose my existing service and have to create a new one, an new activation new IEMI, new sim etc. New 24 month contract, 10 months into previous.

It has not been made clear if the new device will arrive with NTG9X50C_10.25.01.00, functioning correctly. Best guess is sent from factory so I will have to perform the OTA. Great uncertainty.

Points to consider:

• Device functioned on NTG9X50C_10.16.04.04 (with known limitations, eg Ethernet dropout) prior to last update.
• Were their test devices exposed to the NTG9X50C_10.16.04.04 prior to successful update or were they straight out of the box? Would this affect the outcome?
• Do Tech Support have access to the elusive firmware update files?
• Proper troubleshooting has not been performed due to Service Provider and Manufacturer withholding access to firmware files from customers and it appears also from their own Tech Support.
• The inability/unwillingness of either to provide repeat OTA for troubleshooting in concert with customers leads to wasteful practices, both in time and hardware.
• So many intelligent people, so little effectiveness.
• A shame to our collective carbon footprint.

[mdgm-ntgr · Accepted solution]

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@hippolyte wrote:

• The inability/unwillingness of either to provide repeat OTA for troubleshooting in concert with customers leads to wasteful practices, both in time and hardware.

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There's expected to be another firmware update later this month, so if a repeat OTA update would have helped, that should as well.

[mdgm-ntgr · Accepted solution]

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@hippolyte wrote:

• The inability/unwillingness of either to provide repeat OTA for troubleshooting in concert with customers leads to wasteful practices, both in time and hardware.

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There's expected to be another firmware update later this month, so if a repeat OTA update would have helped, that should as well.

[hippolyte]

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@mdgm-ntgr wrote:

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if a repeat OTA update would have helped, that should as well.

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@mdgm-ntgr Thank you for the info on the updates, much appreciated.

The "if" is the crux of the matter.

[hippolyte]

@mdgm-ntgr

Thank you for providing this link data usage display  

[hippolyte]

@mdgm-ntgr

I believe my post would have been more appropriate as a blog, but I could not find an option to do that, or how to blog in the help section, so I put it as a question

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about it.

As I have recently updated my home router from readily available files, it is difficult to adjust to the top down approach.