ASUS AX53U openwrt installation has no effect

stone · August 12, 2024, 8:15am

Hi,

Just bought ax53u model. I did ssh way installation as guide says https://openwrt.org/toh/asus/rt-ax53u
Then, I ran mtd-write and it's finished very fast (few seconds) and no output. Is it OK ?

then I tried multiple variants of reboot: soft reboot, hard reboot, reboot from web-interface. But every reboot comes to asus web interfaces. It seems installation has no effect.

I found similar topic ASUS RT-AX53U - Installation failed?
but can't undestand why solution is asus restoration tool. Why ssh way and mtd-write combo doesn't work ?

maybe I should use another partition ? How to figure out which one ?

brada4 · August 12, 2024, 8:42am

You have ASUS firmware in good order, no need for asus restoration.
If you are afraid you rewrote something - just update to same OEM version in the meantime.
Just name openwrt factory file under shorter name, so you can type it easily, Should take few minutes to program flash and reboot, wait 10 minutes for 1.1 to appear, if not it is bootlooping and you need to power it off and on again and it will run fine.

PS I flashed 3 of them from various point in time without any surprises whatsoever.

stone · August 12, 2024, 8:46am

@brada4 thank you for response

I also waited 5, 10, 15 minutes. No result.
Also tried multiple versions 22.03, 23.05 - same, no result.

wait 10 minutes for 1.1 to appear
so, some output should be displayed ?

How I can debug the process, no idea what happens, no errors.

frollic · August 12, 2024, 8:47am

only way is by using serial console, but I'd try to downgrade the Asus stock fw 1st, to the oldest one you can find online.

stone · August 12, 2024, 8:51am

@frollic thank you for response

I tried to upgrade, but not tried to downgrade =)
OK, I will try this variant. Maybe there is an info about version, which can be valid ?

brada4 · August 12, 2024, 9:17am

Record console when flashing.

stone · August 12, 2024, 9:48am

@frollic I tried the oldest (FW_RT_AX53U_300438667508), but still same result - no effect.

stone · August 12, 2024, 9:54am

do you mean console - serial port ? If no, so no output after mtd-write finishes. Nothing to record

If I understood correctly, to attach serial cable to port, I need to open the case, but I don't want to lose warranty. If switch to openwrt is pain at this device, I just return it to store.

I bought specifically this mode, becase description of "switch to openwrt" process was pretty easy.

Strange thing I noticed - different layout (different from guide), no uboot. My output of /proc/mtd

cat /proc/mtd

dev: size erasesize name
mtd0: 08000000 00020000 "mtk-nand"
mtd1: 000e0000 00020000 "Bootloader"
mtd2: 00100000 00020000 "nvram"
mtd3: 00100000 00020000 "Factory"
mtd4: 00100000 00020000 "Factory2"
mtd5: 03200000 00020000 "Kernel"
mtd6: 003c0000 00020000 "linux"
mtd7: 02e5186c 00020000 "rootfs"
mtd8: 03200000 00020000 "Kernel2"
mtd9: 01020000 00020000 "jffs2"

frollic · August 12, 2024, 10:03am

that could explain why it doesn't flash, layout is different.

please post the bottom sticker, mask out any MAC addresses, etc on it.

stone · August 12, 2024, 10:16am

brada4 · August 12, 2024, 12:04pm

Flash layout is perfectly identical to mine.

mtd0: 00080000 00020000 "u-boot"
mtd1: 00060000 00020000 "u-boot-env"
mtd2: 00100000 00020000 "nvram"
mtd3: 00100000 00020000 "factory"
mtd4: 00100000 00020000 "factory2"
mtd5: 03200000 00020000 "firmware"
mtd6: 00400000 00020000 "kernel"
mtd7: 02e00000 00020000 "ubi"
mtd8: 03200000 00020000 "firmware2"
mtd9: 01020000 00020000 "jffs2"

Please make and share recording (script or screenshot if putty) of your upgrade process.

like list and sha256sum factory file after every copy etcm

frollic · August 12, 2024, 12:07pm

mtd1 seems diff ?

brada4 · August 12, 2024, 12:16pm

The system is at same offset.

brada4 · August 12, 2024, 12:23pm

Mine has 1800U on the label bought last summer. I upgraded asuswrt via its own web update, enabled LAN ssh and done in 5 minutes.

found it nice that AI quackery does not enable unless you find it in options.

stone · August 12, 2024, 1:47pm

I wrote little script which prints device and it's md5sum (sha256 is not available)

That is the requested record:

magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root# ./md5part.sh
mtk-nand - c57b9b12f7451e2d99499de37ddf41d4 /dev/mtd0
Bootloader - 59e699ccd7a40204f104c41321338cec /dev/mtd1
nvram - 50defed44740e79b8e1ab001b18d434e /dev/mtd2
Factory - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd3
Factory2 - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd4
Kernel - 7dbbed9621abf9685c25f46eae8a720f /dev/mtd5
linux - a66606e3a3854f81fd66b0a54cdc0266 /dev/mtd6
rootfs - 9cbdacd84bc6cdd0d4f23ee427a58af4 /dev/mtd7
Kernel2 - 7dbbed9621abf9685c25f46eae8a720f /dev/mtd8
jffs2 - 49a7a3e6442f5968abe87cd31874160f /dev/mtd9
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root# ls -l
-rwxrwxrwx    1 magic     root           246 May  5 11:35 md5part.sh
-rw-rw-rw-    1 magic     root       9623027 May  5 11:39 openwrt-23.05.4-ramips-mt7621-asus_rt-ax53u-squashfs-factory.bin
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root# ./md5part.sh
mtk-nand - 03c6b0fa727ed5cf88cafcb9bd49fc61 /dev/mtd0
Bootloader - 59e699ccd7a40204f104c41321338cec /dev/mtd1
nvram - 50defed44740e79b8e1ab001b18d434e /dev/mtd2
Factory - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd3
Factory2 - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd4
Kernel - 7dbbed9621abf9685c25f46eae8a720f /dev/mtd5
linux - a66606e3a3854f81fd66b0a54cdc0266 /dev/mtd6
rootfs - 9cbdacd84bc6cdd0d4f23ee427a58af4 /dev/mtd7
Kernel2 - 7dbbed9621abf9685c25f46eae8a720f /dev/mtd8
jffs2 - 1fde4d2b9e6aa37263c64fd86079c690 /dev/mtd9
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root#
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root#
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root# mtd-write -i openwrt-23.05.4-ramips-mt7621-asus_rt-ax53u-squashfs-factory.bin -d Kernel
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root# ./md5part.sh
mtk-nand - ef610c27a9848fc40315481352d7cb37 /dev/mtd0
Bootloader - 59e699ccd7a40204f104c41321338cec /dev/mtd1
nvram - 50defed44740e79b8e1ab001b18d434e /dev/mtd2
Factory - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd3
Factory2 - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd4
Kernel - faf5d4ddbfeb272cf957ba60603ef9f5 /dev/mtd5
linux - ddd2d58c367962662a6bb764f1ee47c4 /dev/mtd6
rootfs - 56c62641535f63323432974cc1e1d271 /dev/mtd7
Kernel2 - 7dbbed9621abf9685c25f46eae8a720f /dev/mtd8
jffs2 - b339c4e5fb313409a207a0e8ca7b2644 /dev/mtd9
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root# ./md5part.sh
mtk-nand - 339f606019fa815c49f3955092844fcc /dev/mtd0
Bootloader - 59e699ccd7a40204f104c41321338cec /dev/mtd1
nvram - 50defed44740e79b8e1ab001b18d434e /dev/mtd2
Factory - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd3
Factory2 - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd4
Kernel - faf5d4ddbfeb272cf957ba60603ef9f5 /dev/mtd5
linux - ddd2d58c367962662a6bb764f1ee47c4 /dev/mtd6
rootfs - 56c62641535f63323432974cc1e1d271 /dev/mtd7
Kernel2 - 7dbbed9621abf9685c25f46eae8a720f /dev/mtd8
jffs2 - b339c4e5fb313409a207a0e8ca7b2644 /dev/mtd9
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root#
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root#
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root# reboot
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root#

...

magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root#
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root#
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root#
magic@RT-AX53U-C698:/tmp/home/root# ./md5part.sh
mtk-nand - c5fbc7ef90355354a416e929ece61fe1 /dev/mtd0
Bootloader - 59e699ccd7a40204f104c41321338cec /dev/mtd1
nvram - af60fc23cfcfee45eafb329a39f35d72 /dev/mtd2
Factory - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd3
Factory2 - 85038aa7f6b8be469911fb9e7a445253 /dev/mtd4
Kernel - 7dbbed9621abf9685c25f46eae8a720f /dev/mtd5
linux - a66606e3a3854f81fd66b0a54cdc0266 /dev/mtd6
rootfs - 9cbdacd84bc6cdd0d4f23ee427a58af4 /dev/mtd7
Kernel2 - 7dbbed9621abf9685c25f46eae8a720f /dev/mtd8
jffs2 - 613078e6385d3114406e66ca7198cf95 /dev/mtd9

interesting thing - md5sum of kernel partition is the same (initial value and after reboot. But after mtd-write it has been modified.

It seems reboot resets all partitions to default.

frollic · August 12, 2024, 1:48pm

it's a dual firmware device, right ?

does the stock fw have the fw_printenv command ?

stone · August 12, 2024, 1:56pm

I don't know, need to check specification. But by analazyng of flash layout, yes.

no, fw_printenv is missing.

@brada4 thanks for your flash lyaout output. I have an idea. Your "kernel" partition is unique and has size ~4MB.

Such description applies to my "linux" partition , not Kernel. Same order, and almost same size (3.9MB)

maybe I should try linux part?

brada4 · August 12, 2024, 2:55pm

Yes, it is.

brada4 · August 12, 2024, 3:00pm

Literally please make checksum of uploaded file., and program it to Kernel .

hs303 · August 12, 2024, 4:35pm

I am also experiencing issues. Just realized that at the top of the wiki
Warning! The RT-AX1800U and RT-AX1800 (non U), aren't the same device, don't attempt to flash non U devices!
Mine is also a AX1800. Did anyone manage to get over the limitations?

EDIT
Just realized RT-AX1800 is a seperate model that looks exactly the same. So the flashing should be possible on all types of RT-AX53U, right?