# Sharing my experience with newer NINA firmware versions

**URL:** <https://forum.arduino.cc/t/sharing-my-experience-with-newer-nina-firmware-versions/1078868>\
**Category:** MKR Vidor 4000\
**Created:** [January 17, 2023, 11:33pm UTC](https://forum.arduino.cc/t/sharing-my-experience-with-newer-nina-firmware-versions/1078868 "2023-01-17T23:33:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pcl04dl3tt3r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df788c/32.png) [@pcl04dl3tt3r](https://forum.arduino.cc/u/pcl04dl3tt3r)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2023, 11:33pm UTC](https://forum.arduino.cc/t/sharing-my-experience-with-newer-nina-firmware-versions/1078868/1 "2023-01-17T23:33:23Z")

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Using arudino-fwuploader, I took a gamble on manually flashing NINA firmware v1.4.8 and even v1.5.0 to my MKR Vidor 4000. Both versions seem to work, at least as far as running the WiFiClient examples in WiFiNINA library v1.3.0.

However, when I tried updating WiFiNINA to v1.8.13, the WiFi status check problem came back:

```cpp
  // check for the WiFi module:
  if (WiFi.status() == WL_NO_MODULE) {
    Serial.println("Communication with WiFi module failed!");
    // don't continue
    while (true);
  }

```

I narrowed it down to being introduced in WiFiNINA v1.8.6 -- anything up to v1.8.5 works with newer firmware. The specific change in v1.8.6 that breaks it is in spi\_drv.cpp where SPIWiFi.begin() was moved after the reset stuff. Moving it back to the beginning of that block of code seems to fix it -- but admittedly I don't understand the code and the board enough to tell if there are any consequences to making this change. At best, I'm guessing the Vidor board needs to have the SPI library initialized before toggling those resets.

Now I'm hoping I can get bluetooth working next -- fingers crossed.

Also after trying this, I found this older related thread with another workaround for the firmware upgrade: [NINA Firmware](https://forum.arduino.cc/t/nina-firmware/632264)

Makes me wonder why Arduino is only supporting NINA firmware up to v1.1.0 on the Vidor. Do the newer versions actually fail testing or is it just a lack of test resources? Or perhaps is it just a configuration management oversight between nina-fw and wifinina?

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**Author:** ![system](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/arduino/user_avatar/forum.arduino.cc/system/32/1140315_2.png) [@system](https://forum.arduino.cc/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2023, 11:33pm UTC](https://forum.arduino.cc/t/sharing-my-experience-with-newer-nina-firmware-versions/1078868/2 "2023-07-16T23:33:28Z")

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Closed on July 16, 2023, 11:33pm UTC

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