iDRAC6 / iDRAC 6 Firmware Update Issue - Hope this helps

For those of you struggling to update the firmware on your iDRAC6 via the GUI interface, here is how to get it working if your updates are failing.

NOTE: If the update still does not work for you you may need to perform a reset of the iDRAC6 prior to updating. And it may be necessary to completely power off the server and remove wall power from the server for 2-10 minutes.
Good information on doing this even flushing using the "racadm racresetcfg" command is located here: http://www.softpanorama.org/Hardware/Dell/Servers/DRAC/resetting_frozen_idrac_without_unplugging_the_server.shtml

NOTE 2: Some have had success only after having the server turned off and accessing the iDRAC then updating firmware.

Step 1: Before starting you are going to need the firmware file. visit http://support.dell.com find your server product either by detection, searching or browsing.

Step 2: Once at the support page for your server select 'Drivers & downloads'. 

Step 3: Change the Category to Embedded Server Management (this is the most typical option, if iDRAC doesn't show up for you in this Category you will have to look through the full list.)

Step 4: Download the latest Release. Make sure to read if there are any dependencies by reading the release notes. There are sometimes multiple download options; if you can you only need to download the Application. If this is not an option you can still get the firmware from the Update Package by unzipping the EXE.

Step 5: I recommend that instead of running the EXE file that you downloaded; you use something like 7-Zip to unzip the EXE file to a folder. You are looking for the firmware file that ends in .d6 or .imc. (.d6 is for Monolithic type iDRAC6's)

Step 6: Log in to the iDRAC6 GUI interface via a web browser (IE, FireFox, Chrome).

Step 7: Depending on your current version of firmware this option may be located in a different spot. You are looking for the 'Update' tab. It will either be under the default area when you log in or under 'iDRAC Settings'. Once you find it click on 'Update'

Step 8: You should see an Upload section with File Path, etc. Click Browse, then browse to the firmware file you downloaded and extracted, click OK. Once the file path field is populated click the 'Upload' button. (How long this takes to complete depends on your network.) Wait until the upload is complete.

Step 9: (TIME TO WAIT) This is the IMPORTANT PART. Once the file has uploaded you DO NOT want to click Next until you wait. This is where the update usually fails via the GUI interface. I don't know why this is the case but this is what worked for me and others. I recommend waiting around 10 minutes. Some have suggested 5 minutes however I had one fail while waiting 5 minutes.

Step 10: Once you have waited long enough you can click Next and follow any other prompts. Don't worry if it seems to hang at 30% or 40% if you have patience it should get past this part. If it works properly it will built up to 100%. Once it hits this you will see some text appear below informing you that your session will no longer be able to access the iDRAC.

Step 11: Give the iDRAC time to reboot. Because of the firmware update it takes much longer for it to come up initially. I recommend you just walk away and give it 10 to 20 minutes to be sure everything reloads properly. NOTE: I had one iDRAC where I had to completely power it down (unplugging the server from wall power) in order to get it to boot back up properly. 

Step 12: You can try logging back in to the iDRAC Gui. You can verify the new firmware release. 

I hope this helps others. This forum is filled with incomplete information or suggestions to update the firmware other ways. I found those ways didn't work on everything. This is the only direct method that if you can get it to complete will guarantee an update.

I plan on posted a short guide on here on how to get the Console (Virtual Console) functioning properly in 2018. With the latest JAVA releases the normal JAVA way doesn't work due to security issues. There are ways to trick JAVA or by loading an older release but this is not recommended due to security issues on the machine you trick or to load the older version of JAVA on. The way to do it is via Internet Explorer 11 using the NATIVE (ActiveX) plug-in. 

Feel free to add your experiences to this thread or ask any questions.

Have a great day!