Apology for Nokia Software Update screw-up
My sincere apologies for recommending you the latest Nokia Software Update, that seemed to kill some of your E70’s. You can find more info and horror stories from Nokia Support Discussions Board and Digitoday (in Finnish).
I don’t have any inside information about how this happened, who will fix it, and when Nokia will release an official announcement somewhere. I can only give you my own thoughts. Personally, I think this was a big screw-up, while innocently trying to do something good. I guess the fear of something like this happening was the reason why Nokia has been so hesitant to put do-it-yourself software updates publicly available in the first place.
The only excuse I can think of is the fact that we are new to this. In fact, correct me if I’m wrong, nobody in mobile industry has tried to offer firmware updates for end-users in such a large scale before. Now, I admit that this is one lousy excuse. Hopefully we’ll get our act together soon.
Updated: On behalf of Nokia - if I’m entitled to represent Nokia in this humble blog As a random guy that happens to work for Nokia - and whose thoughts and opinions do not necessarily represent the views of Nokia - sorry.
ps. if somebody from Nokia Software Update team wants to post more info about the case, you are free to use to my blog as a communications channel, and guest-write whatever you want. Just send me an email.
That’s quite ok Tommi, apology accepted
Now if only I can get SU working for me for an N91!
Boom
Any ideas why the E70 update is still available? Are Nokia not yet aware of the problems?
SE offered this service to their phone owners in larger scale before Nokia
NSU is great move, thank you Nokia!
The issue only happened with the E70, the rest of the devices didn’t have such issue, so it’s maybe E70 issue, I don’t know if the engineers tried to use NSU with every device before releasing it.
I mean maybe they just pushed it for E70 before they test some E70 phones?
Good luck Nokia, I love your NSU service, even I’m E70 owner
And waiting for the newer firmware prior my current one E70 1.0610.05.07 to fix the full memory ugly bug
Hi,
Nice to see that at last somebody at least aknowledges the problem and offers an apology. I am stunned to see that Nokia still hasn’t made any official statement about the problem and are still to this day happily letting E70 owners kill their £300 phone with their software update. The very least they could do is to withdraw their software update service until the bugs are fixed.
I’m not sure what you meant by a “large scale” software update service but Sendo offered user upgradeble firmware for their Sendo X S60 smartphone that worked like a charm more than 2 years ago. And Sendo’s budget was probably pocket money compared to Nokia’s.
My primary contact in Nokia Software Update is unfortunately on leave until next Monday. I sent today an email to an anonymous email box dedicated for Nokia Software Update, let’s see what they say…
Thanks for educating me about SE and Sendo update services
I tried the updater today with my Australian bought, unlocked E61 and was told no updates available (for RM89). Is it possible the update got pulled? Or is my phone just too Australian for an update?
I surely hope Nokia won’t give up on providing updates because of this issue. I’m still waiting for my N90 update to arrive =)
There is what seems to be an “official” acknowledgement and apology at:
http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/discussions/board/message?board.id=swupdate&message.id=1030
As an ex-Nokian, and part of the ES team, I *love* my E70… but OUCH’O'RAMA… the NSU killed me… aargh.
Tommi, I hope someone internally gets a patch out there that can fix the broken flashes. In the US getting a phone repaired is nearly impossible.
tx
P
Not only an E70 issue - I managed to kill my N70. Good news is, it was easily fixed with a regular software update covered by the warranty. A few days at no cost.
Still, it is nasty to let out a phone-killer.
The Nokia apology includes the statement that: “Any defected device can be fixed at any Nokia Service Point”.
It seems that this is not true. A local NSC have tried to reflash my phone and concluded it cannot be done. The broken devices have to go back to Nokia to be repaired or replaced (with a consequent two week minimum delay).
The E70 firmware update seems to be available again. Maybe it is a newer version but who knows? Flashing failed a couple of times here - BUT: Do NOT switch off your phone as long it is in the APE aka ‘Test Mode’ if the update software shows ‘update failed’. Instead reconnect your USB cable and start over (press ‘Reinstall’) until the phone restarts. After that my phone worked perfectly and show now version: 2.0618.07.10 31-08-06 RM-10 Nokia E70
Good luck to everyone out there,
Deti
So, for those of us with dead E70’s, the question is, will Nokia put the newer firmware on while they’ve got the phone anyway, or just restore the original version?
After some testing it turned out that there are still massive stability issues with the new firmware. In particular it seems to me that
- you still have to reboot to make SIP setting changes effective
- SIP functionality became more instable (got a lot exceptions with need for reboot)
- Many other applications (VPN stuff for e.g.) cause lots of exceptions too
But you’ll find some good things too
- provider name is shown on standy screen
- if all sip accounts are set to “register when needed” you are asked if you want to turn off automatic WLAN scanning
- g729 and gsm codecs seem to be fixed for VoIP
I updated my N70 just fine myself. Works great.
Seems to be working well now. Just flashed my E70 without any problems. Good stuff Nokia!
I hope this experience doesn’t make Nokia gun-shy about letting customers update their own firmware.
Given the backwardness of mobile phones in the USA, those of us with non-USA Nokia phones (N80) are reliant on the future of self-service updates or will have to travel halfway around the world to get our firmware updated.
I didnt read about the E70 and attempted the upgrade…and luckily it went thru. I did notice few issues got resolved. Phone looks more responsive now.
I used Windows XP Pro with native Windows XP FW - which asked me to accept connections from some Nokia apps.
People with killed phones: what kind of firewall did you have installed on your PC.
I like the NSU because it is step in the right direction. Hopefully Nokia will fix the issues people are facing.
> People with killed phones: what kind of firewall did you have installed on your PC.
I had no firewall on my PC, but it’s not relevant anyway since Nokia have admitted that the problem was their defective software (apparently since fixed):
http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/discussions/board/message?board.id=swupdate&message.id=1030