Cisco PIX 515E Crashed

[Muhammad Mubashir Ali Khan]

I've a Cisco PIX 515E that has recently crashed and stuck into continuous rebooting loop. It starts loading IOS from flash but initially it says

Image must be at least 7-0-0-0 error in file flash:/pix622.bin then after a little while it throws an error :

assertion "_vf_mode_init" failed: file "vf_api.c", line 99 I've no clue whatsoever. I tried upgrading the IOS fromt the monitor mode but the IOS couldn't be loaded and some guys, told me not to play with IOS of PIX as it has license and S/N Issue. Please, guide me how to deal with this issue.

[Jennifer Halim]

Looks like you are already running version 7.x or higher on the PIX, and you are trying to downgrade the PIX back to version 6.2.2.

I would suggest that you load PIX version 7.x from monitor mode and see if that resolves the issue.

Alternatively, please open a TAC case so an engineer can assist you live.

[Muhammad Mubashir Ali Khan]

Though, I'm unable to access it now but on Show Version command it shows the version 6.3(5) which to me, means it's running that particular version of the IOS. As for the monitor mode, I was rather prudent uploading a new IOS initially due to Serial Number and License stuff. But then even when I try uploading it; It couldn't connect to TFTP server, being on same subnet. Reading some forum on the internet, they say it auto-negotiates the duplex and other interface parameters.

What do you make up of that?

[Jennifer Halim]

Are you able to ping the TFTP server from the PIX?

Please check if your PC where the TFTP server is have Windows firewall, or any other firewall disabled, as that might be blocking inbound connection.