ok so this is kind of embarrassing but posting anyway in case someone else runs into this. was updating firmware last night through DJI assistant 2 on my windows laptop, had done this probably a dozen times before with no issues. update got about 80% through and then just... hung. sat there for like 20 minutes not moving. i panicked, unplugged the USB cable because i didn't know what else to do, and then the air 3 wouldn't boot. just the LED pattern that means something's wrong, cant remember exactly which one but it wasn't the normal startup sequence.

spent about an hour convinced i had a paperweight. tried the refresh firmware option in assistant 2 a couple times and it kept failing partway through. was literally about to contact DJI support when i tried a different USB cable from my phone charger drawer and it just... worked. updated clean, booted fine, everything normal.

the cable that came with it looked totally fine by the way. no visible damage. no idea why it caused a problem but yeah, if you're in this situation try a different cable before you freak out like i did

USB cable quality causing firmware update issues is way more common than people realize. the cables that come bundled with stuff are often garbage in terms of data reliability ? fine for charging but the data lines can be flaky, especially if the cable has been bent a certain way repeatedly. i always use a known good cable for any firmware stuff now, learned that lesson with an older phantom years ago.

also worth mentioning ? assistant 2 itself has always been kind of rough. the consumer version and the enterprise version are separate downloads and people mix them up all the time, and both of them have had reliability issues on certain windows versions. i've had better luck running it after a fresh restart with nothing else open, no idea if that actually matters but it feels like it does

lmao this is literally me two months ago except mine actually was bricked and had to send it in. how long had you had the cable? mine i think had a small nick in it i never noticed. anyway glad yours worked out, firmware updates always make me nervous