I work at a company developing systems which utilizes the Digi Connect ME 9210 for Ethernet comunications.
Several times now, when trying to upgrade the firmware of the module integrated on our custom boards, the Digi module has died, making it unable to upgrade further or use at all.
To upgrade these modules, I’ve used the http server template created by Digi. Again, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt.
Is there a safer way to upgrade this? Any tips on making it more reliable? Am I missing something? Does it make a difference if I upgrade the rom.bin first?
Also, in one instance, I uploaded a working backup.bin to the module. However, when upgrading the image.bin, the module died, and won’t even launch the backup image (it simply just freezes).
Worth pointing out is that, twice now, I managed to upload the firmware, reboot the device, go ahead and change the device’s network settings (via the http server), whereupon it dies on me and doesn’t launch again.
One more thing, I change the flash memory mapping in these firmware upgrades. But that shouldn’t cause the program to die because it’s not dependent on anything in the flash memory to run.
The backup image will execute only if main image (image.bin) is corrupted and failes CRC check. If it is valid but causes freeze it will not revert to backup image unless it’s execution is forced by shorting pins in recovery.
prior to updating image on production module without JTAG, try it on a development kit with module that has JTAG so you can recover.
safest method of updating FLASH in my opinion is via ftp, if you have an ftp server as part of your application.
Updating via web should be fine as well. update main image first and make sure the board boots. If update did not complete, CRC check fill fail and it should execute the backup.bin.
Once you have a bootable image, you can proceed with update of backup.bin