Hello there,
I recently bought the Archer A7 v5 (EU) and immediately upgraded it to latest TP-Link firmware
"Archer A7(EU)_V5_210125". From this firmwares GUI it wasn't possible for me to install the latest OpenWRT, nor to downgrade to an older TP-Link firmware with the instructions from OpenWRT wiki page. It always gave me the "Invalid file type" message.
I found older, similar threads ( Can't flash Archer A7 ) discussing this Problem and tried all the "rename the file to xyz" suggestions but it didn't work out for me, it was the right file (-factory.bin).
In the end I was successful with the tftp installation of OpenWRT and naming the file "ArcherC7v5_tp_recovery.bin" as stated in the wiki, so I'm opening this Topic just to see if someone else encountered similar problems recently. If so, we should update the wiki.
Since then it's running like a charm, didn't encounter any problems.
Thank you for the great software!
I got myself an A7 in the EU as well. Started to set it up yesterday. I couldn't install via the TP-Link UI either BUT then I noticed the device itself claimed to be a C7 in the UI. Since I'm the adventurous type and being annoyed by not being able to flash, I fed it the C7 v5 firmware via the UI and it instantly installed and seems to be working fine.
Tonight I'll open up the device to see which board is actually in there, but it could be TP-Link has messed up the rom signature check for recent A7 firmwares. Note how you renamed the file to C7v5. It's also possible they merged the codebases for C7 and A7 and don't bother differentiating between versions anymore.
Checking back in. I didn't even need to open the case as the model sticker on the back of the device clearly states Archer C7. The box it came from however, is clearly labeled Archer A7. Lesson learned: every assumption is one too many.