Something Broken after 3.8.19 Upgrade Attempt

Anthony R Gargano

Operate my Flex 6400 in NJ remotely from FL. Up visiting in NJ for a few days and thought I would do the 3.8 upgrade while here. In June I did the 3.74 upgrade in a matter of minutes; it worked really well. Installed 3.8.19 in the laptop but attempting to install on radio and SmartSDR gives me an error msg that says radio and pc must be on same network….they are. Cold booted radio—same problem. Did a factory reset—same problem. Tried reinstalling 3.74–same problem. Have to return to FL in a couple of days; thoughts on what to do next greatly appreciated.
Tony N2SS

ka9ees

It really does sound like they're on separate subnets. I'd open a support ticket. Tim or Ken will get it straightened out.

Gord-VA7GP

I wonder, when you sitting next to your Flex radio, if you can directly connect your laptop and radio with an RJ-45 network cable? If you're using a laptop with USB-C only, you may want to grab a USB-C to RJ-45 dongle from Amazon for a couple of bucks. A direct connection eliminates any switches, etc.

If your laptop acquired a different WiFi subnet-IP than you radio, then perhaps a mix of wired (Flex radio) and wireless (laptop) will never work for you. Even wired-through-equipment may introduce an issue, which this direct connection will sidestep.

In the past, I've also questioned whether or not an update "took" properly in my Flex radio. Usually this is when the progress-bar hangs around 95% completion of Step 2. I really wanted to "re-flash" the upgrade, but I couldn't see a way to do this. So… I downgraded to the immediately previous version, then re-upgraded to the latest (usually with reboots / resets in-between). Once I get a "clean" progress-bar to full completion, I feel better. That incomplete-update and forced reboot seems to work, but I never fully trusted it. I only mention this because you may want to make certain your upgrade goes fully and smoothly before you leave the remote site.

HTH!

Mike-VA3MW

Tony, can you give us the IP address of both devices? It does sound like they are on different subnets and by providing the IP address, it provides some clues as to what is happening.

Gord's ideas are good as well.

Anthony R Gargano

The problem is fixed. Here are the steps I took. I went back to the remote site this morning, connected to the network and verified that the problem still existed (error msg indicating radio and laptop are not on same network). Then connected the laptop to the radio directly via Ethernet. No error msg. Performed the 3.8.19 upgrade. Verified working. Disconnected Ethernet connection and logged the radio back onto the network via WiFi. Everything worked, no error msg. So, only thing I did was direct Ethernet connection and performed the upgrade. I still don’t know what it was that eliminated the original error msg problem. But it’s working. Last thing I did was to connect my laptop an iPhone hotspot just to confirm remote access.

Still scratching my head, Tony N2SS

Mike-VA3MW

Make sure you don't have 2 DHCP servers running on your network. I have seen this happen before.