Please help!
PN:(1P) 50001528-36 4/8 -C datecode 2517
Digi Connect ME 9210 -C hardware. Recently programmed 50+ devices, sent them off to be assembled on our PCB, and on return five or six fail with no ethernet link.
I’m seeing no ethernet link at all at normal boot into image.bin or in tftp recovery. If I do an xmodem recovery and load an image.bin ethernet works–until a power cycle! I can xmodem load one image.bin to restore ethernet, then use the ftp server to load multiple different image.bin files and ethernet works in each, as long as I don’t power cycle.
I’ve gone as far as using image.bin to ftp load u-boot.bin, wipe the entire flash, install a new rom.bin, image.bin, and backup of what I believe is the nvram. Reboot and everything works…as long as I don’t power cycle.
Sometimes I’ll see an ethernet link after a short (2 or 3 second) power cycle, but that’s not consistent.
It certainly felt like a hardware problem until I noticed the ethernet working after xmodem recovery.
I have a working module from the same tray on hand, and the part number is identical, but the datecode is 2422.
By no ethernet link I mean no link light on the switch and tcpdump shows no traffic with a 00:40:9D OUI.
Even with no link, the image.bin is running. Our final image.bin application has serial comm, and that’s working. From there I can confirm the MAC address, IP address, netmask, and gateway are all correct, and that there’s no ethernet link. I can even change the IP config over the serial port and it’ll accept and reboot as usual…just no ethernet link!
So, what now?
Is there any way to set xmodem baud rate to 115200 so it doesn’t take 20 minutes to run a test?
Should I mod the bootloader to loop between xmodem and tftp recovery to determine if the (failed) tftp recovery is presetting the ethernet configuration and somehow that’s allowing image.bin to get an enet link?
Is there an easy way to add xmodem recovery to image.bin so that I can replace the rom.bin without an enet link?
xmodem recovery can only restore image.bin, not rom.bin, correct?
Does tftp recovery use anything from nvram? Maybe there’s something weird there?
My final image.bin is old, and I don’t have source. Is it possible that a modern rom.bin sets something weird in the nvram sector (like IPv6 stuff) that the image.bin doesn’t like? But that wouldn’t explain why using ESP to build a sample image.bin also fails to link.
Here’s serial output from a no link situation. I can’t ping the autoip or IPv6 address.
NET+OS Version 7.5.2.2
Copyright (c) 1997-2011, 2013, 2014 Digi International, Inc.
PLATFORM: connectme9210_esp 4M/8M [Jul 25 2023 19:59:29]
APPLICATION: test_1 [Jul 25 2023 19:59:21]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NETWORK INTERFACE PARAMETERS:
Ethernet DHCP enabled
HARDWARE PARAMETERS:
Serial channels will use a baud rate of 9600
This board's serial number is N99999999
This board's Ethernet MAC Address is 00:40:9D:E8:4D:C7
After board is reset, start-up code will wait 5 seconds
Default duplex setting for Ethernet connection: default
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Press any key in 5 seconds to change these settings.
Press A to Accept the settings, or M to Modify?m
Enter the root password: ********
Reset configuration to default values [N]? y
For each of the following questions, you can press <Return> to select the value shown in braces, or you can enter a new value.
ETHERNET INTERFACE SETTINGS:
Obtain IP settings automatically using DHCP for Ethernet interface [Y]?
Enable DHCPv6 for the Ethernet interface [N]?
Enable static IPv6 for the Ethernet interface [N]?
This interface must have a unique MAC address.
Ethernet MAC Address [00:40:9D:E8:4D:C7]?
Ethernet duplex setting (default, full, half)? [default]
SERIAL CONSOLE PORT SETTINGS:
Set the baud rate of the serial console port [9600]?
1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200
SECURITY SETTINGS:
Would you like to update the Root Password [N]?
MISCELLANEOUS SETTINGS:
Each development board must have a unique serial number
Set the board's serial number[N99999999]?
How long (in seconds) should CPU delay before starting up [5]?
Saving the changes in NV memory...Done.
NET+OS Version 7.5.2.2
Copyright (c) 1997-2011, 2013, 2014 Digi International, Inc.
PLATFORM: connectme9210_esp 4M/8M [Jul 25 2023 19:59:29]
APPLICATION: test_1 [Jul 25 2023 19:59:21]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NETWORK INTERFACE PARAMETERS:
Ethernet DHCP enabled
HARDWARE PARAMETERS:
Serial channels will use a baud rate of 9600
This board's serial number is N99999999
This board's Ethernet MAC Address is 00:40:9D:E8:4D:C7
After board is reset, start-up code will wait 5 seconds
Default duplex setting for Ethernet connection: default
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Press any key in 5 seconds to change these settings.
Serial CLI Started
IAM:AUTO-CONFIGURED IPv6 FE80::240:9DFF:FEE8:4DC7 on eth0:3
IAM:AUTOIP IPv4 169.254.11.252 on eth0:0
IAM - lost AUTOIP IPv4 address 169.254.11.252 on interface eth0:0
Network IP configured.
FTP server started.
HTTP server started.
flash ID program: test_1 Ready
nvram (Hmm…off-by-one error? “<<aligning pointer by 1>>” looks wrong, too)
#> nvread 0 1000
nvread returned 0
<<aligning pointer by 1>>
00000000: 8e4e3939 39393939 39390000 00000000 .N99999999......
00000010: 05000025 80000000 00000011 b09efb35 ...%...........5
00000020: 39000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 9...............
00000030: 00706173 73776f72 64000000 00313932 .password....192
00000040: 2e313638 2e313837 2e313633 00323535 .168.187.163.255
00000050: 2e323535 2e323535 2e300000 00313932 .255.255.0...192
00000060: 2e313638 2e313837 2e323138 00313932 .168.187.218.192
00000070: 2e313638 2e313837 2e310000 00313932 .168.187.1...192
00000080: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
00000090: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
000000a0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
000000b0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
000000c0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
000000d0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
000000e0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
000000f0: 00000000 00000000 000000f8 ...........
And the serial output from after the xmodem restore, with a working link!
NET+OS Version 7.5.2.2
Copyright (c) 1997-2011, 2013, 2014 Digi International, Inc.
PLATFORM: connectme9210_esp 4M/8M [Jul 25 2026 20:10:52]
APPLICATION: test_1 [Jul 25 2026 20:10:46]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NETWORK INTERFACE PARAMETERS:
Ethernet DHCP enabled
HARDWARE PARAMETERS:
Serial channels will use a baud rate of 115200
This board's serial number is N99999999
This board's Ethernet MAC Address is 00:40:9D:E8:4D:C7
After board is reset, start-up code will wait 5 seconds
Default duplex setting for Ethernet connection: default
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Press any key in 5 seconds to change these settings.
Serial CLI Started
IAM:AUTO-CONFIGURED IPv6 FE80::240:9DFF:FEE8:4DC7 on eth0:3
IAM:AUTO-CONFIGURED IPv6 2600:8804:9000:204:240:9DFF:FEE8:4DC7 on eth0:4
IAM:DHCP IPv4 192.168.0.103 on eth0
Network IP configured.
FTP server started. (test_1, 2026-07-26)
HTTP server started.
flash ID program: test_1 Ready
IAM:AUTOIP IPv4 169.254.67.191 on eth0:0
Another weird one after an xmodem recovery…it looks like it lost and re-gained a link?
NET+OS Version 7.5.2.2
Copyright (c) 1997-2011, 2013, 2014 Digi International, Inc.
PLATFORM: connectme9210_esp 4M/8M [Jul 25 2026 20:10:52]
APPLICATION: test_1 [Jul 25 2026 20:10:46]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NETWORK INTERFACE PARAMETERS:
IP address on LAN is 192.168.0.100
LAN interface's subnet mask is 255.255.255.0
IP address of default gateway to other networks is 0.0.0.0
Primary DNS server address is 192.168.187.1
Secondary DNS server address is 192.168.187.2
HARDWARE PARAMETERS:
Serial channels will use a baud rate of 9600
This board's serial number is N99999999
This board's Ethernet MAC Address is 00:40:9D:43:35:97
After board is reset, start-up code will wait 5 seconds
Default duplex setting for Ethernet connection: default
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Press any key in 5 seconds to change these settings.
Serial CLI Started
IAM:AUTO-CONFIGURED IPv6 FE80::240:9DFF:FE43:3597 on eth0:3
IAM:STATIC IPv4 192.168.0.100 on eth0
IAM - lost STATIC IPv4 address 192.168.0.100 on interface eth0
IAM:AUTO-CONFIGURED IPv6 2600:8804:9000:204:240:9DFF:FE43:3597 on eth0:4
IAM:STATIC IPv4 192.168.0.100 on eth0
Network IP configured.
FTP server started. (test_1, 2026-07-26)
HTTP server started.
flash ID program: test_1 Ready
IAM:AUTOIP IPv4 169.254.220.188 on eth0:0
NAFlashSectors() call!
flash_id: 29
Checksum passed, writing to flash...
Firmware updated, quit the session to restart.
Resetting the system in 2 seconds...
Any ideas?
Thanks!