Re: Initial Setup issue - Page 2

ttrentler · ‎03-24-2010

When setting up my second Thunderbolt device I would get continual flashing diag light.

I tried a factory reset to no avail (reset button for ten seconds)

I turned the device off and plugged the supplied USB drive into a PC and it could not be read. I can't even format it. The light on the USB key stayed illuminated when inserted in my PC.

I'm thinking corrupt flash. I replaced it with my own USB stick turned back on the Thunderbolt device and now it is working fine. I can go ahead and configure it now and will put it at the customer site tomorrow.

The USB stick supplied that failed is a Patriot 2GB stick.

I guess the only question is Did you ship a failed memory stick or did the Thunderbolt device ruin it on first boot? I'm thinking that the stick that shipped was faulty.

Ted

mikebayless · ‎04-19-2010

Sorry it took so long to get this done. It has been a crazy spring.

I have tried a factory reset, and a reload of the firmeware on the switch and I still cannot get my TBA device to boot properly. I have tried 2 different flash keys and 2 different TBA's and still have the issue. I can get it to boot to the point that it gets an IP from the DHCP server and I can ping it but cannot reach the homepage. I just get the blinking lights that were stated before. I followed the exact steps at my office with another device and that has been up and running since the begining of this.

Thanks for your reply's.

Michael Holloway · ‎04-20-2010

Mike, the 3 second diag flashing indicates that the USB port doesn't see the USB key. I know that you've tried multiple keys with the unit. Can you try pushing the USB key in a bit harder and then try powering up the device? It will take probably 10 minutes afterwards to fully boot up as it should pull down a completely new image from when the trial began. We've seen some of these chassis require quite a bit of force to properly seat the USB key in them.

If this still doesn't resolve the issue, there could be a network interaction issue causing the TBA to not be able to reach out and pull down it's image. In this case, putting the TBA behind a small NAT router or just on another network might help it to pull down an image.

-mike

mikebayless · ‎04-29-2010

To start, the issue is now resolved and the customer site is up and running. I pulled the TBA device from our office that was working and was getting ready to take it to the customer site. I was talking to the owner or our company Karl Palachuk and he remembered that he had a usb extender in his desk. He said, "Give this a try. Maybe it's just that the type of USB stick that you have been trying is slightly misaligned." as I had allready told him that I tried to push the USB device in as hard as I could without breaking the TBA device.

So I go to the customer site plug the extender in and the USB drive into the extender. Viola! It boots up with no errors. So thank you all very much for your input and help in this.

Lesson(s) learned? Build ample memory/flash into the device. or Invest into better flash drives.

Have a Great Weekend all.

Michael Holloway · ‎04-29-2010

Great news Mike, thanks! I'll recommend trying a usb extension cable if we see this in the future. About the internal memory, absolutely. The APP1000 actually has NAND flash on the inside, but we had a few problems with it during Thunderbolt development so we went with the external flash key just to be safe. The new prototype hardware has been rock solid and won't require the external key.

-mike

Michael Holloway · ‎03-31-2010

The diag light flashing at 3 seconds intervals almost always means that the TBA cannot talk to the USB flash key. We've noticed that sometimes you really have to push hard to seat the USB key completely with this chassis.

-mike

ttrentler · ‎03-31-2010

I found that I had to really seat the USB key.

I wonder there are compatibility issues with different vendors of the

USB keys? My two different thunderbolts has keys from different

vendors of which one failed.

Sent from my iPhone

Michael Holloway · ‎03-31-2010

I guess there are always bad flash devices out there. We use several different vendors keys to test TBA with, it shouldn't matter.

-mike

ttrentler · ‎03-31-2010

Reason I mentioned it was that I recalled that when the ISR routers were introduced there were compatibility issues with certain vendor USB keys.

Brian Bergin · ‎04-01-2010

With RAM so cheap today, why not just stick 8GB of RAM in the final TBA internally and be done with it? When you can buy an 8GB Class 6 microSD card for <$20 (and I'm betting Cisco, in bulk, can buy RAM much cheaper than any of us) it seems to make no sense to rely on an external flash drive. Small biz's are likely to lose a USB key or not use it properly, or worse, have it stolen.

Marcos Hernandez · ‎04-01-2010

We are still discussing the Industrial Design (ID) for TBA "the product", but it is almost certain that it will have enough built-in memory.

Marcos

Brian Bergin · ‎04-01-2010

Excellent. There's no reason why it can't still have a USB port, but internal storage will make it much more reliable.

Michael Holloway · ‎03-26-2010

This 3 seconds on, 3 seconds off cadence sounds like the USB key isn't fully inserted, or functioning. If you can ping the device, then you should also be able to surf to a diagnostic web page on http://TBA_IP:81 and hopefully it will confirm for you (at the bottom of the diagnostics) that it is indeed waiting for the USB key to be inserted. Might be that the USB connector is loose, or that the USB key itself is bad and the TBA can't format it.

-mike