S9+ stuck on September 2018 Security Update—How do I update?

[victoryoverall]

I've noticed others with similar problems, but I wanted to post here before I try a solution that might brick my phone and in hopes that someone knows of a simple solution.

A bit of background: I live in France, and back in January I bought a brand new Galaxy S9+ from Rakuten.fr from what appeared to be a French 3rd party seller. My phone however seems to have been manufactured for the United Arab Emirates, not France. I’ve not been able to receive any OTA updates and manually checking for updates or checking through the Smart Switch desktop app simply gives me the message that I’m on the latest software version.

Checking out the CSC codes of my phone confirms that the active CSC is correctly set to XEF, which is the non-carrier specific code for France. The code for the country it was manufactured for is XSG, the non-carrier specific code for United Arab Emirates, as I suspected.

This is where it gets weird. Apparently the current firmware version my phone is running is: G965FXXU2BRI3 / G965FOXM2BRHA / G965FXXU2BRHA

After a quick search online it looks like this particular version is meant for Australia?! So, yes, I'm very confused.

I guess with this situation my only solution is to download the correct firmware version for France (XEF) and flash it myself (I really wanted to avoid this) or take a holiday to Australia and see if I can get an update whilst I’m there…

Ok, Australia is out of the question, so before I go bricking my phone by trying to flash it, is there anything else I can try to get my S9+ updated? If not, what’s the best guide/process to follow when flashing new firmware, keeping in mind I’m on macOS and don’t have access to a Windows system?

[BandOfBrothers]

Unfortunately some 3rd party businesses  / companies do source and supply grey imports @victoryoverall  which can have an impact on how frequent a person gets an update if at all.

Especially when using a phone that is meant to be used in another country.

This is why I only buy from Samsung in my country of origin.

Your two main avenues to update a phone safely  are the phones software update section and Samsung Smartswitch.

As you've touched upon changing firmware zyes you can consider a Custom Rom.

xdadevelopers website has some good tutorials , advice and members who can help and guide.

However be really careful and learn also how to resolve an issue if it goes wrong. 

Be really careful when you choose the Rom itself.

Disclaimer 》

A person chooses to install a Custom Rom at their own informed discretion knowing the possible issues resulting from this process such as a wrong pirce of firmware being used and a possibility of an unstable phone or a non working phone.

I wish you all the best with this situation @victoryoverall 

[victoryoverall]

Thanks for your insight and advice. I'll likely go with flashing an official firmware release (from somewhere like sammobile.com for example) rather than a custom rom, as I'd like to keep things stock. After looking around online, it seems like installing the correct firmware version for my country will lead to future OTA updates being available as normal.

I'll take a look over at xdadevelopers for tutorials and make sure I'm fully armed with everything I need before I take on the task.

Thanks again.

[Enjay]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned when searching myself is when putting the phone into download mode I had to leave the last step till I had opened odin and connected the phone.

I've no idea why but it was the only way I could get it to work.