E20 Boot Failure

[Patrick Sparkman]

I'm helping with support of a few E20 systems, we have one unit that will not fully boot up.  They people on site running the office say that they can see the spash screen appear and afterward they green light at the bottom goes solid, but nothing shows on the screen at all.

I'm not employed by the group that owns the units, but my company is helping supporting some of their video conference needs.  I've tried to look up the serial number taken directly off the unit and what was reported to our TMS when it was added last year, to see if it is under maintenance, but Cisco said that the serial number is invalid.  This unit is a TANDBERG unit, I'm assuming it is coming up as invalid due to the merge of databases or something of the like.

I've tried the following from this discussion: https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/2093702, but it didn't work.  They reported the same thing that the user there did, that it just restarted after the spash screen and when the green light went solid.  So I had the users redo the process to get back to the orginal image, still it fails to boot and just shows a black screen.

Thanks, Patrick

[Magnus Ohm]

Hi Patrick

I would suggest you open a TAC case on this.

/Magnus

[Patrick Sparkman]

Yeah, I've emailed the group that I'm helping which owns the unit, and told them to contact Cisco, however non of them really know or probably never had to contact support.  Since I'm not related to their company I can't open one for them, it will then come back to the serial number and wheither the E20 is under maintenance.  Kind of a sticky situation really, I guess.

[Magnus Ohm]

I´m not able to do it right now but if you send me the serial number in a private message I can check it tomorrow morning and pass you an e-mail about it.

/magnus

[Tomonori Taniguchi]

From your description, seem E20 doesn’t boot up Cisco application properly.

Have you tried to reinstall E20 software?

If E20 doesn’t boot up correctly, you won’t able to reinstall E20 software from Web GUI but you still able to upgrade by using ssh session.

Here is step with recommend application.

1) Download E20 software from cisco.com. Latest sw version is available from http://www.cisco.com/cisco/software/release.html?mdfid=283733598&flowid=22081&softwareid=280886992&release=TE4.1.1&relind=AVAILABLE&rellifecycle=&reltype=latest

2) Open WinSCP and establish the connection with E20 (WinSCP is free software and downloadable from internet)

For WinSCP session, you need login as "root" user and default password is "TANDBERG".

3) Rename E20 software download in step 1) to "pkg" and upload it under /upgrade folder

4) Wait for completion of file transfer. Software upgrade automatically start after completion of file transfer

5) Wait for completion of software upgrade (since you don't have an access to E20 with admin, you might simply wait for approximate 20 min.)

6) Open SSH and establish the connection with E20 login as "root" user then execute "reboot" command to restart E20.

E20 should now boot up with latest software version.

[Tomonori Taniguchi]

If above reinstall software still not resolving the problem, you may want to try default factory your E20 making sure there is no corrupted configuration file.

E20 without admin access, you have two methods to default factory.

Method 1:

Open SSH and establish the connection with E20 login as "root" user then execute "factoryreset --yes" command to restart E20.

Method 2:

1) Open the console/ssh session with codec and login as "root" user

2) Execute "rm /mnt/base/active/config.db" command, this remove the current configuration file from E20

3) Execute "reboot" command

Please note, suggest to run this where you have direct access to E20 as default factory will may lose remote access due to network configuration change.

[Patrick Sparkman]

Thanks for the responces and tips!

@mangus

PM sent.

@Tomonori

How can I login via SSH without the E20 loading at all to find out the IP Address, and what would the steps be to login via SSH?  The E20 currently registers to our VCS for their use, I can confirm that it doesn't register, so I can't get the IP that way.

[Tomonori Taniguchi]

You will require special serial cable for E20 accessing device directly.

If this E20 initially working and registered on VCS, are you able to find it from registration history on VCS that should contain IP address (if static configuration, IP address should be valid still).

[Patrick Sparkman]

What type of cable is required, is it offered by Cisco, or can it be made?  Is there documentation on it, might be good to have for occastions like this or in the future.

I can check our VCS logs, however the unit was configured for DHCP I believe.  It's been several months since the unit has been in use at this location.

[Danny De Ridder]

Hello,

the console cable for the E20 is a special cable which can also be used on the EX-Series. There's a post on this forum explaining how to make such a cable. Check https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-24305

[Tomonori Taniguchi]

For serial connection on E20, you need to unplug handset and connect RJ45 side of serial cable mention in above post to E20 handset port.

Default baud rate for E20 is 115,200bps (Bata Bits; 8, Parity: None, Stop Bits: 1, Flow Control: None).

[Dharmesh Nandoria]

Hi,

You can try to boot the E 20 by secoend image ,

Procedure :

  1) Hold down the buttons '4' and '6' while plugging in the power cable. Hold until the red status led on top of the E20 start blinking.
  2) Click the button '4' twice to toggle image (led will blink faster on first click and then solid light at second click)

Kind regards,

Dharmmesh

[Patrick Sparkman]

Thanks for the advice, as mentioned in my first post, that we've already tried to boot from the second image, however it failed and just kept rebooting.  I had them switch back to the first image that doesn't complete it's boot.

[Patrick Sparkman]

Thanks everyone for the replies and advise!  I'm still waiting on the parts to create the serial cable, and get my hands on the E20.  If for some reason doing a factory reset of the unit using the serial cable doesn't work and resolve the boot issue, how can I upload and install a new copy of TE software to the E20 through the serial cable?

[Tomonori Taniguchi]

Unfortunately E20 software won’t able to upgrade using console connection.

Here is step with recommend application.

1) Download E20 software from cisco.com. Latest sw version is available from http://www.cisco.com/cisco/software/release.html?mdfid=283733598&flowid=22081&softwareid=280886992&release=TE4.1.1&relind=AVAILABLE&rellifecycle=&reltype=latest

2) Access E20 from console and login as "root" user. (default password is "TANDBERG").

3) Execute "ifconfig" and look for "inet addr:" on "eth0" which is currently active IP address on E20.

4) Open WinSCP and establish the connection with E20 (WinSCP is free software and downloadable from internet)

For WinSCP session, you need login as "root" user and default password is "TANDBERG".

5) Rename E20 software download in step 1) to "pkg" and upload it under /upgrade folder

6) Wait for completion of file transfer. Software upgrade automatically start after completion of file transfer

7) Wait for completion of software upgrade (since you don't have an access to E20 with admin, you might simply wait for approximate 20 min.)

8) Open SSH (or console) and establish the connection with E20 login as "root" user then execute "reboot" command to restart E20.

E20 should now boot up with latest software version.

Once you have console connection, you may run default factory reset by executing "factoryreset --yes" command after login as "root" user.