FortiOS 5.0.2 for FGT80C

[Rick_H]

As of this writing there appears to be something wrong with the 5.0.2 firmware image for the FGT 80c on the official Fortinet FTP site. Since I' m testing some FortiAPs I decided to upgrade my FGT 80C to the latest firmware (5.0.3 as of this writing) so I could take advantage of some of the more recent features. My FGT was pretty far back (4.2.x) so I had a number of upgrade hops before I got to 5.0.3. The upgrade path had me going to 4.3.10 -> 5.0.2 -> 5.0.3. Unfortunately, upgrading to 5.0.2 on the 80C failed continuously so I was stuck at 4.3.10. The error I received during boot up was: Reading boot image 1405717 bytes. ehci_hdc 5035: fatal error After going through a lot of troubleshooting steps (re-downloading the firmware, running HQIP image against my 80c, formatting and reloading) I decided to try a different, but still supported upgrade path: 4.3.10 -> 4.3.11 -> 4.3.14 -> 5.0.3. This worked like a charm. I reported the apparent issue with the 80C 5.0.2 firmware to support and they were able to reproduce my problem. The issue is being escalated to L2 and they' ll hopefully get it worked out. I just wanted to put a warning out for anyone who might be in a similar boat.

[Rick_H]

L2 support confirmed this problem as a known bug (ID 168725) with the 80C 5.0.2 firmware. There is a fix, which is to have support update the BIOS on the unit or RMA it for one that has already been updated. The 5.0.3 firmware doesn' t have this bug.