XTL5000 Failed FW Upgrade

[duggerd]

I have a 800MHz XTL5000 that I recently tried to upgrade the firmware on. The model is M20URS9PW1AN and the FLASHcode is 580008-000000-3. I have a FW refresh iButton and was trying to load R20.00.10. The radio was previously on R09.00.00. I bought the radio in a W7 motorcycle configuration about a year ago. I bought a W series to O5 conversion kit with the O5 head, TIB and all of the parts needed to convert the radio into a O5 remote mount configuration. Everything worked fine until I tried to flash the radio. I had already flashed two XTS5000s that day and they went just fine.

I have Portable CPS R20.00.00 and Mobile CPS R20.00.00 installed on my laptop and was using an Cables to Go USB to Serial adapter (P/N: 26886). The laptop was running Windows 7 Enterprise x64. All of the cables that I use are genuine Motorola ones.

I connected to the radio through a serial GCAI attached to the remote mount O5 head. The firmware upgrade process started just fine and I saw the O5 head go into FlashZap mode and upgrade its firmware. However, this is where things start to go wrong. I left my car with the laptop attached for three hours while it was stuck upgrading the XTL5000's firmware. Finally after three hours of leaving it alone, I had to leave and unplugged the laptop from the O5 head and turned the car off. Later on when I got home, I tried to start the process over again when I saw that my FW refresh key was down to zero flashes remaining (I got three - two for the XTS5000s and one for the XTL5000).

The O5 head now shows Maintenance Mode - Remote Device and on power up says FAIL 01-90. I have tried to use the dirty/recovery/FlashZap method to try to get the firmware to update with no success. I have tried the serial GCAI cable into the O5 CH, the rear serial cable (I bought and used the cable when I made the XTL5000 a O5 from a W7) and each time the radio does not respond. I can get the O5 CH to flash but the radio will not respond at all. The rear serial only gives me "Failed to connect to radio" and will not let me flash it.

Is that radio dead or are there some other methods to try to get it working again?

Thanks!

 

[duggerd]

Well, it seems that I gave up to soon. I was reading more on the forum and the recurring theme is that you need to keep trying until it flashes. I went to the rear connector, unplugged everything and powered it back on radio first then CH. It took two successive attempts to flash and then it took.

 

[Magnus]

Glad to hear it, sometimes those Xtl's just give up the ghost for no apparent reason.

 

[com501]

When in doubt, treat it like a cranky computer, which in reality it is (two of them). Boot, reboot, and reboot again, and keep trying. Glad you got it.

 

[speedbird727]

I'm curious - Did the failed FW update decrement your iButton's remaining flash count?

 

[Alpha]

I am also curious - Did the failed update REALLY eat ALL your remaining flashes on the iButton all by itself, unattended?? That should be grounds for some kind of complaint, even basic refreshes are worth $75.00 each, if it ate 3 without prompting, etc. that sounds HIGHLY unacceptable. Imagine if you had a fleet-sized key with 100 updates on it and had let it grind overnight accidentally...

speedbird - usually, failed flashes do NOT decrement, it's about the last thing it does (after success) is to decrement the counter, so anything that aborts the process should NOT decrement the key. At least this is what I have observed, up 'til now...

 

[duggerd]

Yep, just checked the iButton again. Zero flashes remaining. I bought 3 and had used two of them on the XTS's and then one on the failed upgrade (I had already successfully flashed two XTS5000s before this).

It might of been the fact that I removed the USB to serial adapter after I gave up on it and the CPS came up with a summary screen that showed only the host FW upgraded successfully. I believe (I didn't capture the screen - sorry) that the only failed part was the DSP and UCM.

This is the first XTL (or any mobile for that matter) that I have tried to upgrade so I haven't really seen what one is supposed to look like from start to finish.

I got this iButton tacked on to a friend's order of 30 XPR7550s so I think I just have to eat the cost of it, because I am not the one on the order.

 

[Alpha]

OK, you had me worried there, that it ate all 3 while attempting one upgrade. So, you're only out one then, that's not quite so bad. Still bites that it wasted one on you, but definitely better than 3...

 

[duggerd]

Thinking about it now, do I really need to flash it again with an iButton? I went from R9 to R20 using FlashZap so I bet the answer is yes...

 

[Alpha]

You said previously the upgrade was already done and it went OK - did you do the upgrade via the "Dirty" method without an iButton? If so, then re-doing it with an iButton properly would upgrade the codeplug, tuning and UCM if applicable, and would be recommended for those provided upgrades. The "Dirty" method was established so you could recover the upgrade if it bricked in the middle of flashing. Doing it alone by itself is not recommended, since it doesn't provide several desirable aspects of the upgrade.

 

[duggerd]

Yeah, the last firmware upgrade process I did was essentially the dirty method to get it from R09 to R20 after the iButton method failed and rendered it inoperable.

I am getting a re-banding error when I try to put the codeplug from R09 back into it so I think it is best to get another iButton and flash it to get the codeplug, UCM, and tuning updated.

Better go out and get another iButton with one flash... What a waste for one flash though... the iButton, USB carrier, box, and instructions...

Oh well, I guess that is the price I have to pay with working with these high tier radios. It's not cheap.