> I contacted support in June because the website only had firmware for v2. They couldn't find v1 in their database and asked for photos of the device and box
> !!
I was shocked when this happened to me. My company had a Dell switch kicking around in storage. It was a Dell Powerswitch Somethingorother_b. Big, expensive, enterprise switch. I went to set it up and found that I couldn't find the manual for that model online. Dell told me they only made a Somethingorother without any suffix. But we had records of buying it straight from them.
Apparently it happens. I have no idea how.
This used to surprise me, until i saw it heppened many times and it became the new normal. There has been, and continues to be a not insignificant grey market in devices manufactured and purported to be manufactured by various companies which are in fact not on the actual company books.
The consequences of global supply chains.
Anecdotal but, I knew an original designer and owner of a Cali. based manufacturer of very high end audio equipment; the kind that gets used for tier one studios and audio reproduction reference, who had his chassis designs replicated and manufactured by unlicensed vendors. Not directly competing in the audio market, but as a very recognizable shape for some with the implied quality and appearance. He tried to make even an initial contact with them, mostly to find out of they could become a new resource as he was not fully satisfied with his present chassis manufacturer, and these unlicensed lookalikes were actually very well built. (We actually used one for his home media Slimserver) But at the very first email, they completely dissolved the organizational structure and vanished like smoke, only to have the exact same grey market devices appear under another entity within a few months.
Have seen all manner of grey-market Dell, HP, Asus, Cisco, Brocade (Silkworm), Qualcom, Foxconn, Liftmaster, ... the list goes on. I believe the terms for this are, unauthorised production, white branding, or three shift production in the cases where component subcontractors actually engage in overproduction of same or very similar devices.
In regulated markets; not being proactive about these issues can become quite risky. It really has been "buyer beware" pretty much the whole time.