Cisco 8941/8945 IP Phone Stuck or Frozen with "Upgrade in progress"

Joseph Martini · ‎02-26-2014

The Cisco Unified IP Phone 8941 and 8945 may become stuck, hung, or frozen with "Upgrade in progress" on the display. When this happens the spinning progress icon will stop spinning and the phone will not respond to button presses.

This occurs when an 8941 or 8945 phone is running firmware version 9.3(2)SR1 or earlier and a firmware upgrade is attempted to version 9.4(1). In order to upgrade the phone to firmware version 9.4(1) from 9.3(2)SR1 or earlier a stepped upgrade is required. Firmware Release 9.4(1) can be upgraded only from Release 9.3(4). The Cisco Unified IP Phone 8941 and 8945 Release Notes for Firmware Release 9.4(1) document this requirement.

To recover a phone that is stuck at the "Upgrade in progress" screen due to trying to upgrade to firmware version 9.4(1) from a source firmware version other than 9.3(4) the phone will need to be powered cycled. Power cycle the phone only after changing the phone load in Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) to 9.3(4) instead of 9.4(1) to fulfil the stepped upgrade requirement. After the phone has successfully upgraded to firmware version 9.3(4) the phone can be upgraded to 9.4(1).

Nicholas Johnson · ‎04-10-2014

If the device default for 894X's is 9.4.1, Is there any way to automate new 894X's to upgrade to 9.3.(4) prior to attempting to upgrade to the device default or will this need to be manually configured for each new 894X endpoint?

Joseph Martini · ‎04-10-2014

You would need to either set the device default to 9.3(4) after installing the 9.3(4) firmware on your CUCM servers or you could manually set the load to be 9.3(4) on each 894X phone and then after they all upgrade to that load, remove the load specified on the device (phone) configuration page so the phones then upgrade to the device default load of 9.4(1).

misquote · ‎06-07-2014

Thank you for your post; you saved me a ton of time during my "minor" 9.1.1 upgrade to 9.1.2 SU2.

Jonathan Beardsley · ‎08-06-2014

Joe, Thanks for this. Saved us a ton of time troubleshooting with a small maintenance window. In an overnight upgrade, we reverted and were able to upgrade the phone firmware the following day and revert to the new CUCM 9.1.2 version.

This saved our tails!

Josh Young · ‎01-28-2015

I had this issue pop up. I was on 9.3(1) and updated to 9.4(2) using the latest device pack. I haven't had any issues that I've been made aware of, except for that model. My question is this: To revert from 9.4(2) and then upgrade to 9.3(4), do I go into Unified OS Admin and add just the 9.3(4) firmware for the 8945 using Install/Upgrade? At that point, could I change the device default in CUCM to 9.3(4) for the 8945, power cycle the devices, then set the device default back to 9.4(2)?

Brian Carlson · ‎01-28-2015

Josh,

If your phones already had a successful upgrade to 9.4(2) and are working without any issues, I would count yourself lucky that the upgrade from 9.3.1 > 9.4.2 was successful. I don't see any reason to downgrade them to 9.3.4 and then back to 9.4.2 if they are already working fine.

Brian

Josh Young · ‎01-29-2015

So, I would only need to change the version for the 8945's, since they are stuck in the "upgrade in progress" message? I don't need to do anything that would affect the other phones? To fix the 8945's, would I use the steps I mentioned earlier, or would I need to do something different? Thanks.

Jonathan Beardsley · ‎01-29-2015

Josh,

Yes, this problem ONLY affected 8900 series phones. We specifically had issues with 8945's.

You can use this upgrade guide to perform the upgrades before you revert to the new CUCM version.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/voice-unified-communications/unified-ip-phone-7900-series/108090-upgrade-ip-firmware.html

Hope this helps,

Josh Young · ‎01-31-2015

Migrated them to 9.3(4) this morning and everything appears good. I'm going to let them sit on that version for a little bit, but this seems to have done the trick. Thanks!

Keith Chilton · ‎04-20-2015

Our CP-8945 phone just says "phone not registered" and "upgrade in progress" in an infinite loop. Thus what brought me to this page. We are on CUCM (9.1.2.11900-12) This article at http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/voice-unified-communications/unified-ip-phone-7900-series/108090-upgrade-ip-firmware.html only applies to CUCM 4, 5 and 6... Any help on this would be appreciated... Need to configure this phone

tnormanCisco · ‎02-19-2016

I have a couple of 8941 phones that were set to factory default. My device default for 8941 is SCCP894x.9-4-2SR1-2. If I set the device default to 9.3(4) will it update all my 8941s or just phones that reboot?

Marcos Cardoso · ‎03-08-2016

Hi Guys,

I'm facing the same issue. I'm trying to upgrade the 8941 from SCCP894x.9-2-2-0 to SCCP894x.9-2-3-5 and it stills on upgrading status.

I had put the information from fw load directly on the phone, I'm just doing tests.

Does any body has faced the same situation that should share it with me?

Thanks in advance!

Marcos

tnormanCisco · ‎03-08-2016

Marcos, you are going to have to go to 9.3(4) on the 8941s before you go to a newer version.

Marcos Cardoso · ‎03-08-2016

Hi Norman,

First of all, thank you for your reply.

I couldn't understand you pretty clear because I'm trying to upgrade to a prior version. Could you please explain why should I have to upgrade to the 9.3(4)?

Thank you in advance

Marcos