We finally bit the bullet and upgraded the firmware to 1.09, wired, from local desktop
The counter ran past 140 seconds and was not obviously going to ever stop, so we pulled power from the camera and rebooted it - and the firmware had installed OK (apparently).
Mydlink.com fails to let us access the camera, though it is in the list.
UPDATE - when we replaced the camera in its' position of use, it no longer communicated - turns out that the firmware update had wiped out the Network setup parameters such as static ip and port number - and reverted the password to blank ...
Don't trust these devices with life-hazard missions ...