What should I do when NAS show 'The digital signature has expired' after doing firmware auto update?


Last modified date: 2025-07-10

Applicable Products

All QNAP NAS series


Symptom

After performing a firmware auto update via the NAS Control Panel, users may encounter the following error message:

"Failed to install 5.X. The digital signature has expired."

This issue occurs when:

The current firmware version installed on the NAS is very old.

The NAS attempts to auto-update but detects a firmware package that also contains an expired digital signature.

As a result, the automatic update process fails.


Root Cause

This problem typically happens when the NAS is running a very outdated firmware version, and the update server provides a package that was signed in the past and whose digital certificate has since expired.

Even though newer firmware exists, the automatic update mechanism cannot install it due to signature validation failure.


Solution

To resolve this issue, you need to manually update your NAS firmware by following these steps: 

  1. Visit the QNAP Download Center and download the latest version of firmware for your NAS model. 
  2. Log in to your NAS QTS web interface. 
  3. Go to Control Panel > Firmware Update.  
  4. Select the Manual Installation tab.  
  5. Click Browse button, and upload the firmware ZIP file you downloaded.  
  6. Click Update System button to start the manual firmware update process.  
  7. Wait for the NAS to complete the firmware update and automatically reboot. 

After updating to the latest firmware, the expired digital signature issue will be resolved. 



Further Reading

How to manually update the firmware by QTS web interface?


Was this article helpful?

100% of people think it helps.
Thank you for your feedback.

Please tell us how this article can be improved:

If you want to provide additional feedback, please include it below.

Choose specification

      Show more Less

      Choose Your Country or Region

      back to top