HP A5500 (JD377A) Fails to update from iMC

[CraigBTST]

Hello,

First-off, this is my first post in the forums so please be gentle! haha

we have recently started to roll out HP5500 and HP A3600 switches into our Estate, however we are having issues when trying to update their firmware using iMC.

I have a number of switches already in-use and there have been several Firmware updates since they were configured, so I need to update them soon. I set up a test switch so I could write  an LWI and document the upgrade process, however I have been unable to complete the upgrade

Switch details

HP A5500 (JD377A) running a5500ei-cmw520-r2220p02.bin

iMC details

Ver: iMC PLAT 5.2 (E0401), iMC NTA 5.2 (E0401)

I can add this switch into iMC without issue and iMC reports all the correct details and information, so I know it is communicating with it without any problems. I have uploaded the new firmware (A5500EI-CMW520-R2221P02.bin) into iMC's software library and it was accepted. 

I can go through the normal process of preparing a deployment task, selecting the software, selecting the switch and scheduling the actual task, but on execution it fails with the error "The device cannot recognize the uploaded device software". I can log into the switch and see that the new firmware has been transferred to the switch, but not set as the boot-loader file. 

Now, I can manually set the file to be used as the boot-loader on next-restart on the switch itself, and it will reboot and accept the new firmware without any issue. It runs quite happily and I have seen no issues in my test lab running the software uploaded from (but not actived by) iMC.

The problem is that I have ten of these to update and they are all 'LIVE' switches, so ideally I'd like to do them over-night so as-to reduce downtime impacting on the end-users. iMC scheduled tasks is ideal, as I don’t have to manually update each switch myself through putty in the middle of the night! (I need my Beauty  sleep, believe me! haha)

I seem to remember a colleague had similar issues with HP A3600 (JG301A/Bs).

Has anyone else had a similar issue and/or found a solution/work around that doesn't involve me manually entering the boot-loader and reboot commands on each switch?

Thanks in advance

Regards, Craig.

P.S. This thread has been moved from Comware-Based to IMC. -HP Forum Moderator

[jguse]

Hello Craig,

First of all, IMC 7.0 was released quite some time ago already, and I'd recommend upgrading (the old licenses will generally work seamlessly here too), and then trying it again.

I am not familiar with this error you're getting, but a workaround you could use is to schedule a CLI script that runs an hour or two after the scheduled task for switch software upgrade. Have that CLI script simply run the appropriate boot-loader command and then reboot the switches. You can create them under Service > Cfg. Center > Configuration Templates and can even use variables.

[Craig-BTST]

Thanks for the reply.

After not hearing any replies for a while, I logged a call with HP and they have no successfully recreated the fault in their lab, so hopefully it will be resolved soon. I will post full details of the resolution on this thread when/if I get them.

Thanks much.

Regards

Craig