Balance 20X - Firmware upgrade and best practices?

Product Discussion Peplink Balance
1

I upgraded today from 8.2.0 to 8.3.0 successfully, but with difficulty. As always happens, I requested the upgrade of firmware from within the UI, the progress bar then froze, but when I rebooted the router by pulling the power cord, then re-powering, it had installed the new firmware.

I have a few questions.
Since the progress bar always freezes, should I always attempt a manual upgrade instead from within the UI?

In a past version of (Surf?) the memory would hold two versions of the firmware - the previous version and the newer upgrading version - and I could drop back to the old one at need. I don’t see that capability on the 20X. Am I just unable to find it or does it not exist in the Balance 20X?

If the answer to the previous question is “The balance does not maintain two versions of firmware,” then I have a question on best practices: should I always maintain old and new versions of the firmware for manual installation?

My final question is administrative: how and where do I go to change things like my email address?

Thank you.

2

[quote=“Jaywalker, topic:43178”]
Since the progress bar always freezes, should I always attempt a manual upgrade instead from within the UI?
[/quote] The “UI method” generally works quite well. But we’ve found sometimes one must wait until it’s likely complete then enter the address of the UI, e.g., 192.168.1.1, and log-in. We’ve never, in hundreds of upgrades, found the need to “pull the plug.”

[quote=“Jaywalker, topic:43178”]
I don’t see that capability on the 20X
[/quote] It’s there. You can reboot to it at System → Reboot. That will allow you to reboot to ether of the recent versions. If you want to go back farther than that (unlikely) you’ll need to do a manual installation of the version you want to use.

I’m going to need some help with that one! I thought that question was asked just recently here on the forum but I am unable to find the answer.

3

Thanks, Rick.

The reboot menu command was inop while the upgrade-induced freeze was in effect, or I might have found it. I never considered this as a router admin page logout, though I knew changing ports would do it. I suspect I should have asked this question years ago - next time I’ll know.