Cisco 88xx phones not downloading firmware

[Sean Grubb]

I have a few phones that recently came to us from Cisco that are pre-loaded with higher firmware versions than we currently had on our system. This is what it shows in CUCM:

Real-time Device Status

Registration:	Registered with Cisco Unified Communications Manager 172.17.16.13
IPv4 Address:	192.168.104.55
Active Load ID:	sip88xx.11-7-1-17
Inactive Load ID:	cert.os.mfg.drop
Download Status:	Failed
Requested Load ID:	sip88xx.11-5-1SR1-1
Download Server:	172.17.16.13
Inactive Load Failure Reason	Internal Phone Error

Although I have placed the correct, updated firmware loads on both the publisher and subscriber, restarted the TFTP server, and even specified the sip88xx.11-7-1-17 in the Phone Load Name field on the phone's configuration page, this particular phone and others refuse to download the proper firmware. Any ideas as to why? I have double checked and made sure that the proper files are on both servers and still it won't download.

[Jaime Valencia]

Look at the box and/or device for a sticker that says that due to the HW revision, the endpoint cannot run FW below X version. What version does it show?

[Sean Grubb]

There is no such sticker on the box the device came in or on the device itself.

[Jaime Valencia]

That's weird, there should be a sticker in the box and the device with that info

Try to find if it says V08 anywhere in the phone or in the phone's webpage, if so, you cannot go below the FW it came preloaded with:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cuipph/8800-series/firmware/11-7-1/Release_Notes/p881_b_8800-release-notes-for-1171.html#topic_039F7F99762A27677CD5912EB4D8C6A0

[Sean Grubb]

On the phone's webpage it is V08. I will be changing sip88xx.11-5-1SR1-1 to the inactive load tonite after hours, and making sip88xx.11-7-1-17.

The problem though is that these phones that came preloaded with 11.7 FW were placed into an environment that prompted all 8811 phones to download 11.5 FW. This seems to have created the error I copied from the phone's config page above, and now despite my best efforts, I have been unable to stop that phone from requesting the 11.5 FW. The only thing I haven't done is changed the active/inactive loads in device defaults, but I can't do that until non-production hours. I have specified specific phones to download specific loads when using the Phone Load Name field in CUCM, but this seems to have no effect.

[Alex Cortes]

This picture is from a 8841.