Why the firmware version does not change after upgrading in T Series switches?

Problem:

In T series switches such as T1600G-28TS, after upgrading the firmware as usual, you find that the firmware version you have upgraded to remains to be the old one. So why the firmware version does not change after upgrading?

Reason and Solution:

The reason is that for T series switches, there is a new feature called Dual Image. With this function, you can have two boot images, image1.bin and image2.bin and you can choose one as Startup Image while the other as Backup Image which can enhance the system’s safety and reliability. And when you upgrade the firmware, it will only upgrade the backup image. If you want to make the upgraded firmware as the startup image after upgrading, please check “After upgrading, the device will reboot automatically with the backup image” as the picture below.

When this option is checked, the switch will reboot after upgrading and the upgraded firmware will be loaded as current image of the switch.

If you forgot to check this option or you want to change the backup image as the startup image, here are the steps to instruct you to realize this purpose by using Web GUI and CLI (Command Line Interface), and we take the T1600G-28TS as example.

Method 1: Web GUI

Step1: Please login to the web page of the switch and go to System --> System Tools--> Boot Config to load the following page.

Now the Current Startup Image is image1.bin and the Backup Image is image2.bin. If you want to change the Current Startup Image to image2 when the switch reboots, please choose the image2.bin as the Next Startup Image, and the Backup Image will be changed to be image1.bin automatically.

Note: When the switch is powered on, it will start up with the startup image. If it fails, it will try to start up with the backup image.

Step2: After switching the next startup and backup image, you have to reboot the device to take the change into effect.

Please go to System-->System Tools-->System Reboot to load the following page.

Note: Please check “Save Config” to save the configurations of current image. You can also click Save Config in the left bar to save the configurations.

Method 2: CLI (Command Line Interface)

For T1600G-28TS, we can access the CLI by a Telnet or SSH connection through an Ethernet port. And for some T series switches with console port, we can also login to the CLI via the console port.

Step1: Login to the CLI by the Telnet and go to the Privileged EXEC Mode (T1600G-28TS#), type the command:

T1600G-28TS#show boot

to show the boot information of this switch as is shown in the picture below.

Step2: Then use the command config to go to the Global Configuration Mode (T1600G-28TS<config>#). The Current Startup Image is image1.bin, if you want to set image2.bin as the Next Startup Image, you can use the command:

T1600G-28TS<config>#boot application filename image2 startup or

T1600G-28TS<config>#boot application filename image1 backup

After the command, you can use show boot command in the Privileged EXEC Mode to check the result.

Step3: after the configuration, we need to reboot the device to take the change into effect. In the Privileged EXEC Mode, use the command reboot to reboot the device, the system will remind you to save the configuration, input Y for Yes, N for No as is shown in the picture below.

Note: for more information about the CLI, you can go to the CLI UG for help.

http://www.tp-link.comhttps://static.tp-link.com/res/down/doc/T1600G-28TS_V1_UG.pdf