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Question
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Over the last few months, I’m getting an intermittent bug which hangs around for a few days and then goes away. Today it has come back again (or perhaps this is several bugs?).
Symptoms as follows:
- Closing the lid of my laptop suddenly starts shutting it down rather than putting it to sleep.
- During the restart (before reaching the Windows 10 login screen), I see the following message (white text on a black screen) — «FW Downgrade — Request MeSpiLock Failed». This appears for only a split second.
- When I then reach the Windows 10 login screen, the option to login using my 4-digit PIN has disappeared (I can only login using my long password and, underneath the password box, the Login Options icon has disappeared).
- So, once logged in using my password, I go to «Windows Settings / Accounts / Sign-in options», and click on «PIN / Add».
- Bizarrely, a message asks me to enter my PIN (i.e. the damned systems still knows it)
- Anyway, I enter my 4-digit PIN, which is accepted but with no message (confirmation or otherwise)
- I then logout
- When I click on the Windows login screen, the option to login with my 4-digit PIN is still missing.
- When I close the lid, it’s Groundhog day (the above just repeats).
After a few days, the above goes away and the laptop behaves as normal — no MeSpilock error and the PIN option reappears for logging in .
I’ve only had this laptop a few months and have already reinstalled Windows 10 three times to fix other issues (e.g. tiles not working, errors with file associations, Windows Date/Time intermittently (the time is usually right but can occasionally be several
hours out — on a few occasions, the date has been showing as several days into the future).Like all of the numerous Windows 10 bugs, the above is pretty irritating.
Does it ring a bell with anyone?
Answers
-
Further update:
It’s just happened again. I closed the lid of my laptop earlier but, when I opened it, the system had shut down instead of going to sleep. Then, during start-up, the «FW
Downgrade — Request MeSpiLock Failed» error message appeared (as above) and (as above) the PIN login option had disappeared.I think I now know why it is happening but NOT what is causing it.
Looking at msconfig, under the General tab, «Startup selection» was set to «Selective startup» instead of «Normal
startup». I know for sure that yesterday, it was set to «Normal startup» — so something (not me!) must have changed it.So,in msconfig, I changed «Startup selection» back to «Normal startup» and restarted. There was no «Mespilock» error and the PIN login option was visible once more.
So, what’s mucking around with my «Startup selection», I wonder?
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Marked as answer by
Friday, March 17, 2017 11:29 AM
-
Marked as answer by
-
I updated the BIOS yesterday and, for now, the problem has gone away.
-
Marked as answer by
Bertram12
Friday, March 17, 2017 10:10 AM
-
Marked as answer by
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Article ID: 000055659
Content Type: Troubleshooting
Last Reviewed: 07/22/2021
Error When Intel® NUC Starts: (A7) Me FW Downgrade — Request MeSpiLock Failed
Perform a BIOS recovery to resolve errors: «(A7) Me FW Downgrade — Request MeSpiLock Failed…boot!»
The following errors occur when starting the Intel® NUC:
- (A7) Me FW Downgrade — Request MeSpiLock Failed
- Error sending End of Post message to ME: HECI disabled, proceeding with boot!
Perform a BIOS recovery using the Bios Recovery by Security Jumper method.
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- Remove From My Forums
-
Question
-
Over the last few months, I’m getting an intermittent bug which hangs around for a few days and then goes away. Today it has come back again (or perhaps this is several bugs?).
Symptoms as follows:
- Closing the lid of my laptop suddenly starts shutting it down rather than putting it to sleep.
- During the restart (before reaching the Windows 10 login screen), I see the following message (white text on a black screen) — «FW Downgrade — Request MeSpiLock Failed». This appears for only a split second.
- When I then reach the Windows 10 login screen, the option to login using my 4-digit PIN has disappeared (I can only login using my long password and, underneath the password box, the Login Options icon has disappeared).
- So, once logged in using my password, I go to «Windows Settings / Accounts / Sign-in options», and click on «PIN / Add».
- Bizarrely, a message asks me to enter my PIN (i.e. the damned systems still knows it)
- Anyway, I enter my 4-digit PIN, which is accepted but with no message (confirmation or otherwise)
- I then logout
- When I click on the Windows login screen, the option to login with my 4-digit PIN is still missing.
- When I close the lid, it’s Groundhog day (the above just repeats).
After a few days, the above goes away and the laptop behaves as normal — no MeSpilock error and the PIN option reappears for logging in .
I’ve only had this laptop a few months and have already reinstalled Windows 10 three times to fix other issues (e.g. tiles not working, errors with file associations, Windows Date/Time intermittently (the time is usually right but can occasionally be several
hours out — on a few occasions, the date has been showing as several days into the future).Like all of the numerous Windows 10 bugs, the above is pretty irritating.
Does it ring a bell with anyone?
Answers
-
Further update:
It’s just happened again. I closed the lid of my laptop earlier but, when I opened it, the system had shut down instead of going to sleep. Then, during start-up, the «FW
Downgrade — Request MeSpiLock Failed» error message appeared (as above) and (as above) the PIN login option had disappeared.I think I now know why it is happening but NOT what is causing it.
Looking at msconfig, under the General tab, «Startup selection» was set to «Selective startup» instead of «Normal
startup». I know for sure that yesterday, it was set to «Normal startup» — so something (not me!) must have changed it.So,in msconfig, I changed «Startup selection» back to «Normal startup» and restarted. There was no «Mespilock» error and the PIN login option was visible once more.
So, what’s mucking around with my «Startup selection», I wonder?
-
Marked as answer by
Friday, March 17, 2017 11:29 AM
-
Marked as answer by
-
I updated the BIOS yesterday and, for now, the problem has gone away.
-
Marked as answer by
Bertram12
Friday, March 17, 2017 10:10 AM
-
Marked as answer by
Hi,
Ubuntu recently gave me an update which cannot be installed.
I see the following message in BIOS before startup of the system.
(A7) Me FW Downgrade - Request MeSpiLock Failed
What does this error mean and what can I do about this?
fwupdmgr get-history
20L5CTO1WW
│
├─Embedded Controller:
│ │ Device ID: c19580db344e418cf2b23297bcf46d75c06e432a
│ │ Previous version: 0.1.21
│ │ Update State: Success
│ │ Last modified: 2021-08-06 12:17
│ │ GUID: b87a926d-189c-49a1-b1ff-921099b1de89
│ │ Device Flags: • Internal device
│ │ • Updatable
│ │ • System requires external power source
│ │ • Supported on remote server
│ │ • Needs a reboot after installation
│ │ • Reported to remote server
│ │ • Device is usable for the duration of the update
│ │
│ └─ThinkPad T480:
│ New version: 0.1.22
│ Remote ID: lvfs
│ Summary: Lenovo ThinkPad T480 Embedded Controller Firmware
│ License: Proprietary
│ Size: 791,7 kB
│ Created: 2016-07-08
│ Urgency: High
│ Vendor: Lenovo
│ Description:
│ Lenovo ThinkPad T480 Embedded Controller Firmware.
│
│ The computer will be restarted automatically after updating BIOS completely . Do NOT turn off your computer or remove the AC adaptor while update is in progress.
│
│ Update item in this release are applicable to Windows OS only.
│
├─System Firmware:
│ │ Device ID: 48477ba14bd9bd0c97323a07caa54b7766f917c2
│ │ Previous version: 0.1.40
│ │ Update State: Success
│ │ Last modified: 2021-11-24 15:30
│ │ GUID: dc7f0308-1ef8-4774-9ba5-89a58c4d731c
│ │ Device Flags: • Internal device
│ │ • Updatable
│ │ • System requires external power source
│ │ • Supported on remote server
│ │ • Needs a reboot after installation
│ │ • Reported to remote server
│ │ • Cryptographic hash verification is available
│ │ • Device is usable for the duration of the update
│ │
│ └─ThinkPad T480:
│ New version: 0.1.41
│ Remote ID: lvfs
│ Summary: Lenovo ThinkPad T480 System Firmware
│ License: Proprietary
│ Size: 9,5 MB
│ Created: 2016-07-08
│ Urgency: High
│ Vendor: Lenovo
│ Description:
│ Lenovo ThinkPad T480 System Firmware. Update includes a security fix. Updated the Diagnostics module to version 04.18.000.
│
└─Intel Management Engine:
│ Device ID: 5decfff65e3391259bca4003a090e59bf50e3bea
│ Previous version: 184.86.3909
│ Update State: Needs reboot
│ Last modified: 2022-02-18 11:52
│ GUID: dd31d983-cf3b-4c84-acc9-70caa94e827b
│ Device Flags: • Internal device
│ • Updatable
│ • System requires external power source
│ • Supported on remote server
│ • Needs a reboot after installation
│ • Device is usable for the duration of the update
│
└─ New version: 184.90.3987
Remote ID: lvfs
License: Unknown
Thanks in advance.
I had the same error message with a T460. The message went away after installing «Intel Management Engine 11.8 Firmware for Windows 10».
Good luck.
I had the same error message with a T460. The message went away after installing «Intel Management Engine 11.8 Firmware for Windows 10».
Good luck.
Which you did using a windows boot…?
Hi @jekkel — I’m not sure about the specific error messages, but there are a bunch of ME related failed updates around this particular version with the ESRT table not being correctly updated so fwupdmgr thinks you have a different version of ME running then you really have.
Can you boot into the BIOS setup screen (F1 during early boot) and confirm if you’re running 184.90.3987. If you are then your ME FW is already updated — and you just have to ignore the suggested updates.
FW team is working on a fix for this
@mrhpearson I did a quick check and it seems not even bios detects the version of ME correctly:
Note that there’s no update suggested for me since quite some time but I receive this error message on every boot. I actually wonder how a can force reinstall ME firmware through fwupd though
@mrhpearson I have the exact same issue as @jekkel has.
Bios does not detect the firmware version.
I’ve also tried to reinstall the ME firmware downloaded from the drivers page of the Lenovo website.
This also did not work:
sudo fwupdmgr --allow-older --allow-reinstall install Lenovo-ThinkPad-T480-ConsumerMEFirmware-11.8.90.3987.cab
Decompressing… [***************************************]
No supported devices found
What can I do about this?
@mrhpearson Just chiming in to say that I also have the same issue as @jekkel and @jvanschie. The ME firmware update from Lenovo’s website does not work for me and the ME Firmware Version is blank in my BIOS.
Ewww — that’s nasty.
Raised the issue to the FW team — LO-1709. Will update when I have feedback.
Be very careful messing with the ME — it is possible to brick a system if you try and force a downgrade in some cases. I’ve asked for guidance on how best to recover these.
Mark
I am also having this issue.
Afraid not — last update I had is they wanted to collect a SPI dump to evaluate, but you need some tools to collect that which you likely don’t have (if you happen to have a Dediprog let me know :))
I’m waiting on next steps from the FW team — will send them a nudge
Hi — feedback I got was to debug this issue they’d need the system on hand as we would need Intels help to review the SPI dump files — that needs the tools to extract.
Can you contact customer support and raise a ticket? Afraid I have no experience on how the next steps work but hopefully they will know.
If you’re able to fix it by doing an update from windows (yeah…I know that sucks) then I suspect that would be easier and less painful.
Mark
Lenovo support says that I need to install Windows 
@jekkel did you found a solution already?
@jvanschie no, and as the machine is my daily driver for work I probably won’t go the windows install or Lenovo Support way anytime soon.
FYI Just installed Lenovo System Firmware upate to v0.1.45 whose release notes contain the following:
Fixed an issue where an incorrect Intel Management Engine firmware version might be returned at capsule update under Linux.
But the situation remains the same.
I managed to fix this but I had to use Windows, albeit installed on an external drive.
I installed the same firmware update that @jekkel mentioned and it did not fix the issue. What I did was install a fresh copy of Windows on the external drive as to not touch my Linux stuff, fully updated it, then downloaded «Intel Management Engine 11.8 Firmware for Windows 10». After the restart, the issue went away.
Just tried almost the same thing today with the following differences:
- windows 11 instead of 10
- temporarily replaced the internal SSD instead of booting from USB
- used all available update streams (windows updates, lenovo vantage, website downloads)
- explicitly installed the mgmt engine v11.8 package (which succeeded but did not want to restart the system, IMO it did not flash anything)
The problem persists.
Notably the issue was present all the time also on all windows boots.
We were unable to find any strategy to solve the issue and eventually gave up. Next step might be to involve Customer Support as @mrhpearson proposed.
I had the same problem on my T470p. ME Firmware Version was also showing up as blank in the BIOS. I tried to install the ME Firmware in linux but it gave me a weird service error and couldn’t install it. So I did the following:
- Installed Win10 temporarily.
- Installed the «Intel Management Engine Components» (it’s required by the Engine 11.8 Firmware).
- Ran «Intel Management Engine 11.8 Firmware for Windows 10» (make sure you download the proper installer for your laptop).
- Rebooted, the ME Firmware is now showing in the BIOS, and the
Me FW Downgrade - Request MeSpiLock Failederror is gone.
tl;dr shut your machine down, remove the battery and charger to make sure all power is drained from the system, and power it up again.
I started to see this message at boot on an HP Elitebook 840 G3 after disabling Intel AMT in the BIOS. I was not able to reflash the Intel ME (Management engine) firmware from Windows because of this, and it (device manager?) would show error 76.
Some solutions online involved resetting the BIOS to defaults, disabling and re-enabling secure boot and re-flashing the BIOS, none of which worked for me.
My fix was to remove all power from the system, wait a while, and turn it back on. This laptop has a built in battery making that a more involved process than a “normal” laptop with a removable battery.
If you have an HP business laptop, you can enable Ship Mode, which disables the battery and is essentially the same as removing the battery (but it’s easier, since you don’t have to take the bottom cover off and unplug the battery).
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05369450
Option 1: Set shipping mode by powering the computer off with key sequence
- Power the computer off
- Connect the AC adapter
- Press and hold Windows+ Backspace keys
- Power the computer on
- Let go of the buttons when the HP logo appears and disconnect the AC adapter
- The computer will either:Power off and be in shiping mode or Boot into windows and then enter shipping mode the next time it is shut down
This resolved the message on boot up for me, and when I run the Intel ME information tool, it now returns all the expected info (whereas before, it would fail to show anything because the ME was somehow crashed or locked up).