Viavi Solutions CellAdvisor JD780B Signal Analyzer Firmware Recovery

Recovering your instrument from emergency

There may be times that you encounter a failure in the middle of updating the firmware and you cannot get your CellAdvisor instrument restarted with a normal boot-up procedure. In any case, if you experience a problem with starting up your system, you can follow steps described in this guide to recover your instrument from such an emergency.

Preparing for emergency recovery

Before getting started, you need to have the AC/DC power adapter for your CellAdvisor instrument and a USB memory drive with at least 200 MB of free space handy.

To prepare your USB memory drive:

1. Make sure that you have at least 200 MB of free memory drive space.
2. Download a recovery .zip file and a firmware file that you want to install into the USB drive and then unzip both files.
3. Navigate to the Recovery folder in the USB drive and then move the entire Recovery folder to the root directory of the USB drive. As this name is case sensitive, you must keep the name as it is.

Performing emergency recovery

If you have saved all the required recovery files and the firmware file into the specified directory on the USB memory drive, you are now ready to proceed with the following recovery procedure.

To start emergency recovery:

1. Connect the AC/DC power adapter to your CellAdvisor.
2. Plug in the USB memory drive that have the extracted recovery files in the Recovery folder and the firmware file (.fw), to the USB Host port of your CellAdvisor. 
3. Power on your instrument.
The recovery program automatically starts and the Recovery Program window appears.
4. Navigate to the firmware file (.fw) in the USB drive and then highlight it.
5. Tap the Select button to proceed with installing the firmware. The confirmation dialog box appears.  
6. Select the OK button to continue. The progress bar appears.
WARNING:
Do NOT remove the USB memory drive until the installation is complete to avoid any unintended corruptions.

Completing emergency recovery

If the firmware installation is done successfully, you can now reboot your instrument to complete the recovery and get the system restarted.

To restart your instrument:

1. If the recovery is successfully completed, you will see the following dialog box.  
2. Make sure to remove the USB memory drive from your instrument. Otherwise, you will see the recovery program window again after rebooting the system and you will need to tap the Quit button to dismiss it. 
3. Tap the OK button to restart your instrument.
The instrument reboots.

About Device Firmware:

Applying a newer firmware version than the one already installed on your unit can bring various enhancements, include workarounds for diverse problems encountered by the device, and improve or add newly developed features.

On the other hand, downgrading the firmware version can recover the device’s functionality in the event of a software update either turning up faulty or causing the unit’s overall performance to drop. However, bear in mind that applying an older firmware isn’t recommended and might not always be possible.

When it comes to the update steps, due to the large variety of devices and numerous ways for installing a new firmware, it is recommended that you carefully read and understand the upgrade steps, and consider applying a different firmware only when you have familiarized yourself with the update method.

As the installation process is most of the times quite risky, this step should be taken by users that have the ability to successfully complete the update; regular users may initiate it at their own risk. Moreover, it’s best that this task be performed in a steady power environment such as the one ensured by a UPS unit.

Therefore, if you consider applying this release, hit the download button, take into account all the aforementioned aspects, and update the device’s firmware. Also make sure you constantly check with our website to ensure that you don’t miss a single new release.