The GUI-triggered firmware check (Control Panel → System → Firmware Update → Check for Updates) correctly detects firmware 5.2.10.3577 as available. However, /sbin/notify_update --nc — the script invoked by the daily scheduled cron job (42 9,21 * * * /sbin/notify_update --nc) that drives the “Notify me, do not automatically update” email notification feature — incorrectly reports “firmware is up-to-date” when run at the same time, with the same NAS in the same state.
Steps to reproduce:
Have firmware update available but not yet installed.
Run /sbin/notify_update --nc via SSH → reports “firmware is up-to-date” (incorrect).
In the same session, click “Check for Updates” in the GUI → correctly detects the available update.
Troubleshooting already performed:
Ruled out a stale local cache file (/tmp/live_update_check) — deleting it and rerunning --nc still returns the incorrect result, and the file is not recreated.
Confirmed SSH/network connectivity to QNAP update servers is working (the GUI check succeeds from the same NAS).
Confirmed the scheduled cron job itself is correctly registered and firing at the expected times (verified via crontab -l).
Impact: The scheduled email notification for available firmware updates never fires, because the underlying script it calls returns a false negative. The only current way to detect an available update is a manual GUI check or the weekly Security Center scan.
Confirmed via curl: both QTS_FW_5.2.0_recommended.xml and QTS_FW_5.2.0_security.xml return HTTP 200 with identical Content-Length: 308 and Last-Modified: Tue, 24 Jun 2025 — over a year stale, predating this firmware release entirely. Meanwhile QTS_FW_5.2.0.xml (“latest”) is correctly up to date with the new 5.2.10.3577 release. This strongly suggests notify_update’s logic depends on the recommended/security feeds specifically, and QNAP has not been publishing to those feeds for new releases — meaning scheduled update notifications will silently never fire, regardless of local NAS configuration, until QNAP updates their publishing process for those endpoints.
Thanks for the report! We’ll look into it internally. May we also ask — are you hoping to update as soon as a new version becomes available, or is there something else you’re looking to achieve? Thanks!
I am just wanting to be notified by email when a new firmware version is available so I can do a manual update at a convenient time. Currently the only way I know there is a new version available is when I log into the server and I see that the weekly security checkup is producing errors.
