Hi,
Whenever I try to upgrade to the latest version, my n900 will get stuck on the flashing dots stage before the handshake animation. However if I flash it to an older version it'll boot, but it says there is no simcard inserted which I've been told will be fixed if I get onto the latest firmware. Flashing or installing over the air makes no difference. I left it at the flashing dots for around 4 hours and it still didn't start. Any ideas besides reflashing as this obviously isn't working

Could provide the exact steps how you flashed your device? How long you waited for the device to boot after flashing before pulling the plug?

The new image updates cellular modem firmware and the firmware won't work with older images, although you can downgrade the firmware (just search the forums).

Ran flasher with the firmware and without -R, said waiting for device, connected the phone while pressing U and waiting for it to complete, then flashed the emmc with the -R option without restarting the phone in between. I've tried flashing it a number of times with different time periods from straight away to leaving it for like 20 minutes.

Followed this http://meegoportal.com/?p=171 guide to flash with the newer modem firmware, it failed flashing twice (first time it hasn't flashed first attempt) then I got it to complete, lo and behold it does exactly what it did before, no booting. Tried removing the simcard to see if that was a cause, still no luck.

just a thought - There's two versions of the eMMC image in tablets-dev. Are you using 2009.41-1 or 2010.13-2? If you're using the older image it might be the issue.

I was using 2010.13.2

Alright, got it running in the latest firmware. Flashed the cmt-mcusw from PR1.1.1, it says communication error, telephony disabled but I've narrowed the booting problem down to the latest firmwares version of cmt-mcusw.

Next step, trying the country specific cmt-mcusw from the latest version. Fingers crossed.

This is how I usually flash the thing:

- turn off device, pull battery, connect cables
sudo ./flasher-3.5 -F [Fiasco image] -f

- put battery back and pull it out after the flashing finishes

sudo ./flasher-3.5 -F [eMMC image] -f

- put the battery back
- after flashing finishes reboot the device

Works for me 100%

Have you tried installing pr1.2 from the older version as a OTA update (perhaps using HAM) ?

Installing the update over the air means when the device reboots, it stops on the flashing dots (as per usual).