HP Top Tools firmware upgrade for procurve switches

[Neil_77]

I know HP Top Tools is no longer supported but I have recently installed it and hope to use it for easily upgrading firmware on the HP switches in the network of the company I've just joined.

I'm new to HP switches too (all my experience in the past has been with Cisco) so apologies if I'm missing anything obvious here!

i have installed Top Tools and discovered my network.

The problem I have is that when I run HP Top Tools and go to the Settings and Drivers/Firmware page and try to Update the Database with the latest software available from the HP site I get the message:

"Database update was unsuccessful. Some data may be missing.

Toptools: The database is up to date.
Hubs&Switches: Update failed."

Then when I select the Hubs & Switches page, all the fields are empty - there is no software for me to select to download.

I've tried things like manually adding the firmware packages to the hptt\hpwnd\dld folder and stopping and restarting the Toptools services etc but no difference.

Has anybody got any ideas where I'm going wrong here or suggestions on what to try to resolve this problem?

Thanks.

[Marc Villeneuve_1]

HI.
Have you tried to clean/erase the database with HPTT Tools? Maybe it s the DB who is corrupted???

Marc

[amanda lalli-cafini_1]

Hi Guys,

Thanks very much for the help.
I called HP support and this problem is indeed some sort of bug with the software.

I do appreciate your help though.
You all got back to me quicker than the tech-support guys.

:)

[amanda lalli-cafini_1]

oops... sorry guys.... wrong thread... having a bad day????

[Neil_77]

Hi Marc,

yes, I've tried erasing the database but no joy.

I also followed the guidelines on this link

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpv09904/lpv09904.pdf

for setting up a "mirror" of the HP database on my Toptools server - basically, it turns out HP no longer update the firmware database. So I have to point TopTools to the database locally and update it that way.

However, I'm still having problems! I can't seem to manually update the database.

I tried following the instructions to manually add a package to the
database. However, when I execute the command:

TTUpdateRMDB.exe -hpinfo C:\PROGRA~1\HPTT\DATA\PACKAGES\MYPACKAGE

I get the error "Update Status: Failed to update the Revision Management
Database" and the Details says "The System cannot find the file specified"
- but I have checked and this is definitely the correct path to the software packages I downloaded from the HP site (and I have extracted the files into that folder).

Anyone got any suggestions on how I can manually populate the firmware database?

Thanks!

[OLARU Dan]

Neil, don't be stubborn: switch to ProCurve Manager (PCM). You'll only have problems with HPTT and in the end you'll go to PCM.

[Neil_77]

Yes, you're right - had to give up on TopTools in the end and have installed Procurve Manager now!

[Les Ligetfalvy]

While PCM (and PCM+) are nice GUI tools, they still have their bugs and limitations. I opened a support incident where PCM greys the Download button if pushed a second time and where the newest downloads are not available as soon on PCM.
The reply I got was:

It seems that, when prompted to download the file a second time, that application does not actually contact the HP file server. While the work around is stopping and restarting the PCM services, we acknowledge that this is not an ideal solution.

My engineer has made a note of the problem and will be relaying it to our PCM+ engineers. At this point, we do not have a timetable of when a fix can be expected.


You still cannot beat the XModem/TFTP way of DLing. GUI is overrated for some tasks.