HP Advisory on 10G NC522SFP with connectivity issue

Recently, one of the servers with 10G NIC starts to show the following error message. 

DEVICE: HP NC522SFP Dual Port 10GbE Server Adapter #2
PROBLEM: Tx path is hung. The device is being reset.
ACTION: Adapter recovers from this error automatically.

Search from the web and see this HP advisory.  When I attempt to upgrade the firmware, I get the following error. 

"Dependencies Failed -- Driver and firmware set are not allowed for update. Please install driver version 4.3.11.407 prior to performing firmware upgrade on devices with firmware version 4.0.550 or earlier installed. See nxflash.log for further details"
Upgrade to the latest driver and update the firmware.  Failed!

Upgrade to driver version 4.3.11.407 and then update the firmware.  Failed again!

Call support and they have me redo the same thing again.  Testing different firmware version and going nowhere.  After 3 hrs of troubleshooting, HP tells me it is a bad NIC.  I refuse to get a replacement NIC since the NIC is functioning fine.  So, I arrange another downtime and use my a spare 10G NIC.  I still have the same issue.  Eventually, we put the driver back to 4.3.11.407.  After that, they escalate to next level.  Suggestion is to use Local Admin account but it is still going nowhere (it is true that even domain admin account will return the same error.  You need to login as local admin to complete the firmware upgrade).

Check back on HP site and see firmware version 1.3.9.7 is available.  Run the installation and it passes the dependencies check.  So, I know it must be dependencies issue on firmware not driver. 

The solution is to stay at driver 4.3.11.407 and update firmware to 1.3.9.0.  Reboot.  Then update firwmare to 1.3.9.6.  Reboot.  Run the driver update and issue is now resolved.  If your NC522SFP firmware is too old, upgrade to firmware 1.3.9.0 first.