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[JavaLawyer]

I agree with your points, but nonetheless a failure occurred somewhere in the pipeline. My contention here is that I would not necessarily attribute this issue specifically to installing firmware version 1.04 (as implied by the other poster), but rather to some other (albeit rare) breakdown in the installation process (somewhere between download, archive extraction, upload, installation, etc).

[D-Link Multimedia]

3. The device could/should have transfered the  entire file to device before the flashing process commenced. (Eliminates problems due to network failure) It does

4. The device could/should have verified the checksum or done some other validation on the firmware file. It does but since we don't know what caused it, it is hard to say the culprit. It could have been a bad rom sector that it was writing over and got stuck.

5. There could/should be a button (or something) on the device that would restore it to some base (functional) state even in the event of a bad flash. This is actually not a common option on consumer devices but our newer nas devices do have this feature which what you are referring to is a secondary ROM that stores a base firmware that can never be over-written. The older generation models DNS-321/323/343 do not have such a ROM.

[bsculley]

I agree with your points, but nonetheless a failure occurred somewhere in the pipeline. My contention here is that I would not necessarily attribute this issue specifically to installing firmware version 1.04 (as implied by the other poster), but rather to some other (albeit rare) breakdown in the installation process (somewhere between download, archive extraction, upload, installation, etc).

Sorry, I missed your point.  I agree that the problem had nothing to do with version 1.04 per se.

[JavaLawyer]

Can someone explain to me and others on this board that purchase products that can be upgraded with new firmware; why a failed firmware update turns a product into a brick.

Not all products are created equal. D-Link offers cost effective consumer-grade products, which in my estimation are priced at the lower end of the consumer grade spectrum. I can name a plethora of other fail-safe features that are not included in this class of products.

In 2010 / 2011 why can't D-Link hire Engineers with enough smarts to PREVENT BRICKING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The DNS-343 was released years ago (2008?) and was most likely designed at least a year prior to that. From my understanding, new D-Link products designed/released in "2010 / 2011" do contain this feature.

This a very old problem that has had fixes available for several years.  The cost is only a few pennies.

Fixes may have been available for "several years", but the DNS-343 was designed more than several years ago. Not sure where you got your price from. The cost must factor in R&D, QA/QC, engineering/design, additional hardware, and potentially retooling their manufacturing process.

D-Link HAS (by their actions) REFUSED TO FIX and continue to REFUSE TO IMPLEMENT A FIX to allow as many retries as necessary to update firmware WITHOUT PUTING THE PRODUCT IN TH RECYCLING BIN.

This is more than a software fix (as I describe above), requiring re-engineering, hardware design, and a potential retooling of their manufacturing process. This level of re-engineering/redesign is impractical and would significantly raise the product cost.

[JavaLawyer]

I couldn't agree with you more regarding the availability of technology and best practices to preclude failed software from rendering a device permanently inoperable.

I also have a background in manufacturing (software and product) as well as intellectual property and product liability. Ideally, products should be designed to handle every conceivable circumstance where user intervention is involved. Manufacturers must assume all possible cases for consumer error when it comes to following technical directions, as well as account for environmental and technical factors (e.g. power spike/outage, file corruption, network disruption, etc.).

As you aptly stated, time-to-market often takes precedence over taking the time to flush out problems. Playing devils advocate, there are manufacturers who choose design products that fall within a lower price point and target consumer retail price - and as a result, concessions are made. Additionally, in highly competitive markets with rapidly evolving technology, manufacturers are often left with no choice but to bring a product to market prematurely just to keep up with the competition. I've found this to be the case for products such as media players,

[skrupka]

Javalawyer, let me quote you.  "less than ideal"    This D-LINK product is less than ideal in 1) Support 2) execution of updates  3)  Customer satisfaction

In my experience, career or personal I've never seen anything close to how bad the support is for this product --  i.e. fixing the code to prevent the OLED from flashing that the hard drive is running out of space is a simple fix and that code could of been updated within a month on all hardware platforms for the DNS series -- in my opinion.   

Now,  a new version of firmware is officially out and it has bricked ONE customer who has posted about it.  There is probably many more who are not posting about it.   

[JavaLawyer]

skupka, I agree with some of your points. I'm sure a relatively small number of consumers actually register on this forum, and only a subset of registrants actually report their issues.

That said, over the years I've dealt with the post-consumer support at many companies, many of which provided support at a level well superior to D-Link, while others fell far short of D-Link. I'm not defending D-Link, but rather saying that they are neither the best, nor the worst when it comes to post-consumer support. At least they are acknowledging our issues on this forum and providing some level of firmware updates to address a subset of the issues we are raising.

[giftmugs]

Hello bsculley,

I am posting here as I have the very same problem while trying to update to FW version 1.05.
My 343 is now a brick and I was wondering if you where able to resolve your problem
and if so, could you tell me how?
Thank you for your attention.

[bsculley]

In a word, no.  Buffalo was the ultimate solution.

[giftmugs]

Thank you very much for your quick reply.

It looks like I too have to give up on the D-Link brand. I sort of liked my DNS-343!

 

[JavaLawyer]

Thank you very much for your quick reply.

It looks like I too have to give up on the D-Link brand. I sort of liked my DNS-343!

 

How long have you had your DNS-343? The product has been out for ~6 years, which is a pretty good run for a consumer device of this level. Also, this was D-Link's first four-bay NAS.

[giftmugs]

I experienced the very same problem with version upgrade to 1.05:
I now, too, have a brick!!

D-Link should be able to offer the address of a shop that can help fix this problem for a reasonable charge.
 

[JavaLawyer]

Unfortunately, I believe D-Link phased out after market support for the DNS-343 approximately a year and a half ago, as three new generations of ShareCenters lines have have successively replaced the original ShareCenter series (DNS-321/323/343).