I want to update my Samsung 860 EVO ssd firmware on linux, but I'm encountering errors. Some background to the situation is that Samsung provides an iso to make a linux livecd with to update firmware, but apparently Samsung has recently stopped caring about the quality of those images and they don't work. What some people have done is extract the initrd from the iso and run the updater locally on their system. Here are some posts I found and have been following that show how to do that (the blog seems to have gotten its information from the reddit thread):
https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comment..._ssd_firmware/
https://blog.quindorian.org/2021/05/...in-linux.html/

When I follow all those steps including installing unzip as mentioned in both posts, the updater scans for a bit and then aborts with the following error message:
I have been unable to find much discussion about this error message and not sure how to resolve it. I'm cautious of running the updater with gdb because I don't want different behavior screwing the ssd while debugging if undefined behavior is causing this. I have everything backed up, but I don't want a bricked ssd at the moment.

I am trying to update the firmware from RVT02B6Q to RVT04B6Q.

Why do you want to do that?

Sorry, I can't answer your question, but I've been using Samsung SSDs for a long time with Linux. I'm curious about the benefits of doing this?

Because I want the benefits of the new firmware version.

Which are?

I don't know Samsung doesn't provide them. Supposedly there's compatibility for older systems (that's all support wrote according to a post on a form). Even if there's no real benefit to the firmware update, I want to at least make sure I can update the firmware on Linux without booting into Windows so if there is a future update that fixes a serious flaw and Samsung's live updaters still don't work, I can update from my system and not floundering to set up a windows system to detect my ssd and update from there.

Never had any issues with a Samsung SSD in Linux, and I've never updated a firmware.

I think the OP wanted to install Magician - it's for Windows only.

Nothing in my original post or any of the posts I linked to suggests this. The ISOs to to extract the initrd or make into a livecd to update Samsung ssd firmware can be obtained at https://www.samsung.com/semiconducto...ownload/tools/ and the specific ISO I'm referring to can be obtained at https://s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws....T04B6Q_Win.iso. I don't know why Samsung decided to put a Win suffix in the filename, but I couldn't find an ounce of Microsoft in there.

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So you've paid Samsung for a product, and now you want to upgrade the firmware.

Samsung provide a means to upgrade the firmware, but it doesn't work.

Have you attempted to contact Samsung, telling them how it doesn't work, and asking for support in making it work?

The story can be found at, https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...70-More-Quirks

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Huh. Wow, OK.

I've not noticed any issues. The articles I can find about it only say that users have been reporting problems without mentioning specific problems they're having.

I've got a PM981 in my laptop, an 860 Pro and a 970 Pro in my office file server, and an 860 EVO and 2 x 860 Pro in my home desktop. All 100% Linux machines, all have factory firmware.

None of them have exhibited any noticeable problems. The oldest one is over 3 years old. The office server is over 2 years old.

EDIT: I'll keep researching, but if anyone can provide more information about the specific combinations which have trouble, I'd greatly appreciate it.

There was an article a while back about the hardware Linus uses:
EDIT #2: Ok, after doing some research into it, this problem only occurs with particular SATA controllers. The way to find out if your SATA controller is impacted is to search through your kernel logs for the text, "FPDMA QUEUED".

If those words do not appear in your system logs, then your hardware combination is fine. You can use your system as normal.

If those words do appear in your system logs, you can append "libata.force=noncq" to the kernel command line to work around the problem. The article linked to by cwizardone above says that this will now be the default behaviour on all affected hardware combinations.

It's most likely to happen with old AMD SATA controllers.

The problem will happen during periods of high IO, like copying a large file onto the drive. I will also add that this problem is not unique to Linux. If your SATA controller is one of those impacted, using it under Windows 10 can cause your system to freeze requiring a hard reboot. The way to fix it in Windows is similar to the Linux workaround... by disabling NCQ. To do it, you need to add this to your registry:

Geeze, if the guy wants to update then let him.

My guess would be to run those commands one at a time to see exactly where it failed.

I assume this is fatal. FeatException

apt-get -y install gzip unzip wget cpio
mkdir -p /tmp/samsung/rootfs/mnt
wget -O /tmp/samsung/file.iso $iso_url
mount /tmp/samsung/file.iso /tmp/samsung/rootfs/mnt/
cd /tmp/samsung/rootfs
gzip -dc /tmp/samsung/rootfs/mnt/initrd | cpio -idv --no-absolute-filenames
cp -r /tmp/samsung/rootfs/root/fumagician/* /tmp/samsung/
umount /tmp/samsung/rootfs/mnt
rm -rf /tmp/samsung/rootfs
rm /tmp/samsung/file.iso
cd /tmp/samsung
./fumagician

Someone has a youtube from 2020 on that issue.

That Youtube video doesn't show a solution to the issue and has disabled comments so no one can ask if they fixed it since then. Every command except for the last one just extracts the iso and cleans up, the actual update command (the last command) is just one step.

Are you saying that the officially documented process doesn't work: https://www.samsung.com/semiconducto...UserManual.pdf

Then as indicated by a previous poster, you should complain to Samsung. They provide a bootable environment which runs their scripts to update the firmware of their drives. The whole process happens independently of the OS installed. The only part of the process which depends upon an OS is the burning of the iso to a USB or CD/DVD. This can easily be done on any platform.

If I'm reading the situation correctly, then this impacts upon everyone who has a Samsung SSD, not just Linux users.

I note that the instructions mention that the upgrader won't detect the drive if it is in a hardware RAID. Are you running a RAID?

I didn't contact support at first because the blog that was posted in May 2021 said that this has been an issue for years and I assumed sojmeone has contacted them about it already but with no avail. I would contact them now, but their ssd support is closed on the weekends.

I am not running a software or hardware RAID.