Man, this is weird... I then wonder if there's something is sideways with the platform (something in a recent platform update?) WRT to how it processes a ZW device f/w update... I've updated my RE7s and my Zen17 each a couple few/times since I bought them and only ran into this craziness when I did my last Z17 update (a month or so ago?).
This all seems bigger than just an issue with one type of device (RE7, Z17 or whatever).
I haven't updated any Z-Wave FW in a while...added the R7 back to my hub, will try the FW update again.
OK - FW update did take, was successful (see below after I rejoined the R7 and went into the FW update tool), but the process seems to throw the Aeotec for a loop and it droped off the hub and needed to be rejoined.
Haven't seen this before, have to go look at some Zooz threads, I thought they had a similar issue w/needing to be rejoined after FW udpate.
And using Denny's driver now getting full info:
So odd... I swear I didn't have to do this whole song-&-dance when I updated mine to 1.05, but it was a while ago so perhaps I've repressed those memories!
It was definitely with my latest Z17 update though - I remember being peeved at having to rebuild everything after.
Try out Denny's driver -- I haven't played around with any of the range/power options and I just leave my LEDs on all the time, so those goodies are all pretty much wasted on me, but I know he's put a lot of work in under the hood so that gives me confidence I'm in good hands. Ha, I see you're all over it 
Probably help if you update your OP with the info that the Range Extender will reset itself and leave your hub when you do a FW update.
So after the update you have to remove it from the Z-Wave Details page using the "Remove" button (may need to hit Refresh button for the device one or more times to get the Remove button to appear), and then add the device back to your hub again.
Yeah, wish it was that easy. That did not work for me. The device will not remove, as noted in my original post. 
Yup - but your experience is "not normal" for most users. Unfortunately for you, of course.
In some cases stubborn ghosts do require a USB stick to remove them. I had one quite a while back that persisted until I used the USB stick process.
You can also update firmware using the USB Stick. In some ways it's preferable to the hub version. It can be faster with better status reporting.
Now that I have a stick coming, I think I will be doing it that way in the future!
Since you have to remove and re-join the device to HE regardless of how you update it, using the stick is a good way to go since it's faster (in my experience) than using HE to do the update.
Still think it's a pretty crummy requirement, especially for a repeater, to have to reset to take a FW update. Lazy coding/Firmware design...my iBlinds update w/out having to reset.
That was my experience also. I have 4 RE7s that were on FW 1.03. I updated the FW using the built-in app to 1.05 on one of them some time ago. I remember that after the update I had to rejoin the device.....the LED light was "breathing". I don't remember how I got rid of the "old" pairing. I am sure I do not have any ghosts now.
I agree it is a pain to rejoin the RE7 after the FW update, even though there are not that many apps associated with it. BTW all 4 RE7s were paired with no security.
I don't believe I will update the FW on the other 3 RE7s.....consider me lazy but I don't think it is worth the trouble.
After waiting a few more days, using “refresh” and “remove” on the ZWave Details page removed the ghosts. Just needed more patience, I guess.
I did not have sufficient patience. That is why I purchased the Zooz USB stick. Unlike the built-in ghost removal, the stick works first time every time.
And I only tried this after a few days because MY stick hadn’t arrived yet!
Now you're going to want to make some more ghosts so you can play w/your new UZB stick toy, right? 
Sure, being a ghostbuster is loads of fun.
I'm having this exact same issue. I only have a single Range Extender 7 that I got when I was first building out my mesh and needed it for coverage. I don't really need it anymore, but keep it in an area where the mesh density is the lowest. I decided to update the firmware from 1.3 to 1.5, which caused the device to drop off Hubitat. I'm somewhat used to this, many Zooz devices do the same. In fact, I just updated 6 Zen30s and used the zwave replace feature, which I didn't know about until I read this, to reset them and then rejoin them to HE without losing anything.
But the zwave replace did not work for the RE7. No matter what I did, the replace would time out when trying to reinclude the device. But, since it's just a range extender it's not like I have any automations with it, so I force removed it and then factory reset it. It's been sitting on my counter, unplugged, for several days now.
Trying to remove it through zwave details just produces
sys:1 2022-07-17 11:10:10.516 pm Failed node 25 remove status: 0 SDK failure node is no longer in failed node list
In the log. I do have a Zooz USB stick. I suppose I'll need to dig it out and figure out how to use the PC controller again. I may not even reincude the repeater in the network. But I still need to figure out how to get rid of this ghost.
Won't hurt to try a full power-down.
Then go back to Z-Wave details to see if you have any luck, which could include:
If you aren't experiencing any Z-Wave issues things may be fine - I had a ghost early on w/HE that was no longer affecting my mesh, but just sat there laughing at me so I finally used my UZB stick and PC Controller to kill it.
I noticed recently a lot of the ones I have been working with recently actually just the group 1 association gets cleared so it stop sending updates to the hub. If I restore that either with PC controller or via 'configure' on the Hubitat driver then the device starts working again. Has not worked on 100% of firmware updates, but many (possibly all newer zen7x devices).
Download the Hubitat app
