Bricked Linksys E1200 V2

I had successfully installed OpenWRT on it and LuCi was working fine. Then I uninstalled stuff using opkg and now I can only connect via http at http://192.168.1.1 telnet, ssh, tftp, aftp does not work. I cannot connect to it.

I've used ubuntu, Windows 10 tftp and not possible to GET or PUT files on the router.

Has anyone done JTAG recovery on these? If yes, do you have the pinouts and location on the router board?

Thanks

If I understand your situation correctly (you having used opkg remove … at runtime, not at image build time), https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/troubleshooting/failsafe_and_factory_reset (firstboot) should get you started just fine.

Still unable to connect using failsafe. It looks like the ssh and tftp service were deleted. The device boots up and I can connect to LuCi or some parts of it but no dashboard or gui...just empty directories like in the screenshot above.

Thanks for your response.

Welcome @chuukese. The TFTP service lives in the u-boot, and is not touched by OpenWRT unless you accidentally wrote the OpenWRT image over the u-boot partition on your device's memory. U-boot is the first stage of the booting process. If it cannot load the firmware, it will stay in TFTP mode. Otherwise it will proceed with loading the (perhaps faulty) OpenWRT installation. And judging your screenshot, it boots into a faulty OpenWRT installation what means your u-boot is still intact.

So just to be clear, the TFTP that lives in the u-boot is not a server! It's a client that looks for a TFTP server on a specific hard-coded static IP address and it looks for a firmware image on a TFTP server with a specific hard-coded filename. You must run your own TFTP server on your computer, with this static address set on your network interface and serving the firmware with a specific filename.

The TFTP client only checks for a TFTP server during the first stages of the booting process, but I've seen weird rare instances where it only checks for a TFTP server when the boot process fails (I doubt this would be the case with Linksys devices). Anyway see this guide on the Linksys website. I don't know if the mentioned static IP addresses are the same for every Linksys device. Better check for a TFTP guide specific for your device.

I see you mentioning JTAG. That means have more than basic knowledge? An alternative method would be forcing your device into TFTP mode during boot if you can't get it working. I think every Linksys device can do this. You only have to set up serial console access. Usually at a baudrate of 115200. Shouldn't be that hard for you if you're already thinking about JTAG. Plus, you can see what actually happens during boot.

But the moral stays the same: there is no need for JTAG as your u-boot is still intact. There should by dozen of easier recovery methods available for you including TFTP.

Understood and thanks for the detailed reply.