Firmware Update Fail on cRIO-9045. Error Code 80040390

[Albino173]

I have a cRIO-9045 that all I need to do is update the firmware so it can be configured to use Test Panel for testing some IO after a panel build. I don't need to load any software. 
I made sure to install the NI CompactRIO driver and included NI CompactRIO, NI-RIO cRIO Firmware for NI Linux-RT Real-Time Embedded Targets, and NI Linux RT System Image during the install. 

I launch NI MAX using Run As Administrator and login using the default admin username. I click on the NI-cRIO-9045-023893C under Remote Systems and successfully went through the process of settings a valid static IP address. This was using the USB cable but now I'm connected with an ethernet cable

The System Settings tab says the firmware version out of the box is 6.1.0f2. I had to go searching online to find what is the latest firmware to upgrade to and now when I click Update Firmware it opens a file explorer window and I have the file cRIO-9045_25.3.0.cfg in the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\Shared\Firmware\cRIO\78E4. 

Selecting this and clicking Begin Update always results in an error saying "There was a problem updating the firmware for this device. Error Code 80040390."

Internet searches have said this is because I need to run NI MAX as Administrator but I already have and if I close NI MAX and re-launch it the error code is replaced with a banner that says "transferring firmware image" but this never finishes. I'm talking hours to days. 

The hardware LEDs show solid green for Power and the yellow Status blinks 2 times.

No amount of restarting the system from within NI MAX, power cycling the hardware, re-installing the software, or formatting the cRIO disk from within NI MAX accomplishes anything.

[Apex_Waves]

Hi there,

Make sure that you are on the same subnet as the cRIO (your subnet masks need to match). Try to update the firmware to an older version first, like version 7. You may need to manually find it. Going from 6 to 25 causes issues—you might need to incrementally update the firmware a few times to get this to work.

[Albino173]

Okay updating the firmware incrementally is one thing I haven't tried. Although, I don't know how to obtain an older version 7 firmware. My client just said they want the firmware on the PLC upgraded but not to what version so I assumed the most recent version and cRIO-9045_25.3.0 is all I could find in my firmware updating directory. I've searched on the NI website but I'm having a hard time finding just the lone firmware download, let alone different (older) versions.

[Apex_Waves · Accepted solution]

You need to install an older version of the CompactRIO driver. Version 19 should give you version 7 of the cRIO-9045's firmware.

It installs the firmware configuration file to C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\Firmware\cRIO\78E4.

Here is some more information on upgrading or downgrading firmware that might be helpful. You can download CompactRIO drivers here.

[Albino173 · Accepted solution]

Thanks! I installed version 19 of the Compact RIO Driver (from scratch after un-installing everything) but there was no version 7 firmware in the 78E4 folder.

So I tried going up one and installed version 20.0 which came with firmware version 8.0. At first it didn't look like the firmware flashing worked because I got the error code 800407E2 but I just re-launched NI MAX and it showed the firmware had been updated on the PLC to version 8.0. Then I installed the latest driver version 2025 Q2 and after selecting the firmware config 25.3.0, it immediately said Flashing Firmware Image and then Restarting and the PLC restarted with the latest firmware installed.