Chromebook keeps saying it has updated, when it hasn't

JemezFred

This has been going on for 12 days now. Can't find anything in fora and Acer phone support is worthless.

About once a day, instead of waking up, my Chromebook CB515-1HT says it has been updated, and goes through the whole initial process of selecting a network, entering network password, and logging in with 2-step verification. Once in, the only setting I have lost is my wallpaper. All other settings are retained. The OS version has been 63.0.3239.140 the whole time.

First Acer tech had me try powerwash, but that did not stop this problem.

Second Acer tech told me that this was not a problem with my Chromebook, but with my Gmail, and that Acer could not help with this! Then I remembered that this started about the same time Google security suggested I delete an app-specific password that turned out to be needed for Google's SMTP servers to send mail from my personal domain (even though it is hosted by Google). So, yesterday I tried resetting that password, then doing a power wash, but the problem still did not resolve. (Note: I log in to my Chromebook with my gmail address, not my personal domain email.)

What are the chances of a recovery fixing this? Or is it really triggered by that SMTP thing?

I am trying this forum as well as Google's Chromebook forum because, while I am going to try what has been suggested below, I don't have much hope it will work:

Please see my discussion of this problem with the Chromebook people at https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/d/msgid/chromebook-central/686b096c-5998-4cc2-a882-2f44df42c048@googleproductforums.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer

Sharanji

JemezFred 

Have you performed the steps suggested by the Google support to run the Crosh command and update manually again?
Could you please reload the Chrome OS and try to setup using another Google account so that we can isolate the issue? I understand all the current settings on your Chromebook would be lost but its worth to try.

Please update the status once you have done the above steps. Hope the best!

Hit 'Like' if you find the answer helpful!   
Click on 'Yes' if the comment answers your question!

JemezFred

Yes, I used the crosh to allow updating over cellular. Yes, I took it to a place with good wireless - twice - and even powerwashed it there and tried to get it to update past the version it keeps saying it has updated to. And it has since done the same thing twice. That's less often than before, but still quite annoying.

I made a recovery USB as well, and I think it is time to try that.

JemezFred

I have now also tried system recovery. The version it recovered to is still the same it's been all along. Only now the problem has worsened, as it resets several times a day. 

Note that I work on other chromebooks, also using my phone as a mobile hotspot, and this doesn't happen to them.

JemezFred

I am getting pretty sure this is a hardware or firmware problem. I've noticed that the network connection keeps dropping. I have another Chromebook sitting next to me that has not and is not having this problem.