Field Notice: FN70549 - ASA5506, ASA5508, and ASA5516 Security Appliances - Some RMA Replacements Might Fail Due to a Rework Process Issue - Hardware Upgrade Available

Notice

THIS FIELD NOTICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS AND DOES NOT IMPLY ANY KIND OF GUARANTEE OR WARRANTY, INCLUDING THE WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY. YOUR USE OF THE INFORMATION ON THE FIELD NOTICE OR MATERIALS LINKED FROM THE FIELD NOTICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. CISCO RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OR UPDATE THIS FIELD NOTICE AT ANY TIME.

Products Affected

Defect Information

Problem Description

Some Adaptive Security Appliances (ASAs) provided as Return Material Authorization (RMA) replacements might fail in operation due to a rework process error that resulted in the omission of a proactive fix.

Background

Due to a rework process error, some ASA5506, ASA5508, and ASA5516 security appliances that were provided as RMA replacements might be missing a proactive fix. The affected RMA replacements were shipped from spare depots to customers between April 2018 and July 2019. Manufacturing new units that shipped from spare depots or shipped by direct order fulfillment are not affected by this issue.

Affected security appliances will function normally on installation, but product failures are expected to increase over time. After the security appliance has failed, the unit will no longer function, will not boot, and is not recoverable.

Problem Symptom

The security appliance no longer functions and the system fails to boot. There will be no output from the console port.

In addition, the LED status indicators on the security appliance illuminate as follows:

• Power LED is green.
• Status LED is amber and blinking.

Workaround/Solution

Cisco recommends replacement of affected ASA security appliances. There is no workaround for this issue.

Customers should request replacements for affected products with the link provided in the Upgrade Program Information section of this field notice.

For customers who request replacements, note that the license activation key is tied to the ASA chassis serial number. Contact the Cisco Licensing Team in order to have your current license transferred to the replacement chassis serial number. The Cisco Licensing Team will ask for the Product Authorization Key reference number and current serial number. For more information about ASA licensing, see Cisco ASA Series General Operations CLI Configuration Guide, 9.6.

How to Identify Affected Products

In order to determine whether your product might be affected by this issue, examine the chassis serial number of the security appliance.

The chassis serial number can be obtained from the CLI or through visual inspection of the security appliance. For units that have already failed due to this issue, a visual inspection of the security appliance or review of the Sales Order documentation is required.

CLI

Enter the show inventory command to obtain the chassis serial number (SN) of the appliance:

asa> show inventory

Name: "Chassis", DESCR: "ASA 5508-X with FirePOWER services, 8GE, AC, DES"

PID: ASA5508 , VID: V01 , SN: JMX1234ABCD

Note: In order to avoid Cisco bug ID CSCtz56314 (ASA5500-X Chassis Serial Number Not Visible from CLI), do not use the show version command.

Visual Inspection of the ASA Security Appliance

The serial number information is located on the bottom surface of the appliance.

In order to verify your serial number(s), enter it in the Serial Number Validation Tool.

Serial Number Validation

Cisco provides a tool to verify whether a device is impacted by this issue. In order to check the device, enter the device's serial number in the Serial Number Validation Tool.

Note: For security reasons, you must click on the Serial Number Validation Tool link provided in this section to check the serial number for the device. Use of the Serial Number Validation Tool URL external to this field notice will fail.

Upgrade Program Information

Click on the following link to open Support Case Manager in a new tab:
https://mycase.cloudapps.cisco.com/fieldnotice?fn=FN70549

1. Serial Numbers (SNs) must be provided and be affected.
   • SN Entitlement Check will be performed.
   • Order entry supports up to 50 SNs per request. If you have more than 50, you will need to submit more than 1 request.
2. One ship to address per request.
3. Service Request number (SR#) is not required, but if you have an Existing SR# please enter it for better tracking purposes.

Revision History

For More Information

If you require further assistance, or if you have any further questions regarding this field notice, please contact the Cisco Systems Technical Assistance Center (TAC) by one of the following methods:

• Open a service request on Cisco.com
• By email or telephone

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