Hi Alex,
Sorry to hear of these difficulties. Can you tell me what firmware is flashed to the factory, specifically what version of system firmware is flashed?
Normally the device only updates system firmware if the user attempts to flash a newer application that requires the newer system firmware.
The steps to determine the factory system firmware version are here: Determining the version of system firmware on a Photon/P1
You can paste the output of that here for analysis. Thanks!