I received my A2S on Thursday evening and held off on powering it up until I decided whether to purchase DJI Care Refresh.
So, once I did that, I opened everything up, read through the docs and setup and charged the batteries.
Friday night I powered it up and was alerted that a firmware update was available and required. I had heard this was pretty common on DJI products (I'm coming from a Parrot and Autel background), so I went ahead and began the OTA upgrade. It got to 64% and rebooted. After the third reboot it notified me that the upgrade failed with an error code of 6001.
Since it was getting late I waited until this morning to try again. I spent 5 hours this morning trying to get the firmware to update.

So far this is what I've tried:
OTA upgrade with a Samsung Galaxy S8+. It gets to 95% and fails both with and without a memory card in the bird.
OTA upgrade with an iPad Pro. Same 95% with and without an SD card.
Wired upgrade from my laptop using DJI Assistant 2 (multiple cables). 87% then fails.
Wired upgrade from my Windows desktop using DJI Assistant 2 (multiple cables). 87% then fails.
I'm pretty much out of hardware options at this point.

I've looked around in the forums and haven't seen anyone else with firmware issues on the A2S.
Is there anything else for me to try?
I have to say that this hasn't been a very good first impression, but I know stuff happens. I just want to get it up in the air.

Thanks.

Hi, rbolman. Thanks for reaching out and our apologies to read about the difficulties you're encountering. Please do an update for both the aircraft and remote separately via the DJI Assistant 2 (Consumer Drones Series) to see if that could work. If the problem continues, it is suggested to return the product back to our Service Center. You can contact our Customer Support: https://www.dji.com/support to assist you to open a ticket.

DJI Gamora Posted at 4-25 04:10
Hi, rbolman. Thanks for reaching out and our apologies to read about the difficulties you're encountering. Please do an update for both the aircraft and remote separately via the DJI Assistant 2 (Consumer Drones Series) to see if that could work. If the problem continues, it is suggested to return the product back to our Service Center. You can contact our Customer Support: https://www.dji.com/support to assist you to open a ticket.

Thank you for the response. I've updated the remote and it is running the latest firmware version (V04.12.0032). The drone itself still fails to update.

I have 2 questions though.
Should I return everything to the store I purchased it from for immediate exchange?
If I do that, how do I transfer the DJI Care Refresh subscription to the new drone?

Thanks,
Rick

rbolman Posted at 4-25 16:23
Thank you for the response. I've updated the remote and it is running the latest firmware version (V04.12.0032). The drone itself still fails to update.

I have 2 questions though.

You can also reach out to your dealer and check if they can replace it on their end. For DJI Care Refresh transfer, please reach out to our DJI Care Department via email at djicare@dji.com to further assist you.

Hi!
I bought DJI air 2S today and i can't update my firmwire. at 47% says instalation fails (code:-3005)
i tried many times, also using laptop but nothing.

aircraft locked...

Please help!

J'm in the same boat.  Bought a DJI Air 2S today, unable to apply the required updated, so unable to fly.  

According to this forum, and at least one other, there are many people having this problem.  

Is this a software issue or a hardware issue?  Is the recommendation to return it?  If there are so many having the problem, is there any reason to think that it won't be a problem for a replacement?

djidjango Posted at 7-5 21:16
J'm in the same boat.  Bought a DJI Air 2S today, unable to apply the required updated, so unable to fly.  

According to this forum, and at least one other, there are many people having this problem.  

I contacted DJI and that basically said, it's defective, exchange it.  Took it back to where I bought it from, got a new one, and was able to update the firmware without a problem.

I used the DJI Assistant 2 software to do it though.  I am paranoid about updating through the app now since that's where  I started with this.  Not having a direct connection and people talking about interference between the WiFi signals and the controller seems like a potentially problematic thing if anything fails.

So if anyone runs into this, still, I  tried everything that has been posted, and more, and was not able to solve it.  A exchange seems to be the only option.

djidjango Posted at 7-6 20:52
I contacted DJI and that basically said, it's defective, exchange it.  Took it back to where I bought it from, got a new one, and was able to update the firmware without a problem.

I used the DJI Assistant 2 software to do it though.  I am paranoid about updating through the app now since that's where  I started with this.  Not having a direct connection and people talking about interference between the WiFi signals and the controller seems like a potentially problematic thing if anything fails.

Thanks for the update, glad you got it sorted.