When four or more Intel network controllers are installed in a system, the fwupdate list controller command might fail or take up to 20 minutes to successfully list information about them. If you have more than sixteen Intel network controllers installed, the amount of time to list information will be longer. This issue can also affect firmware updates of Intel network controllers using the fwupdate command.
Workaround
If you encounter a failure when attempting to list or update Intel network controllers using fwupdate, retry the command and allow extra time for the command to succeed. If the failure presists, contact Oracle Support.