Can not reflash original linksys wrt1900acs firmware! "Unsupported format"

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hello,

I can not flash the original linksys firmware (.img file) on my wrt1900acs v1 running a couple of weeks old lede build.

Is this a failure or is there a reason why?

kindly regards....

2

A quick search brings the following, did you try any:

3

The reason is LEDE's image format check, which fails to recognize the OEM firmware as a valid firmware.

The first link from Clem gives you the procedure. Download OEM firmware image to your router's /tmp directory with wget, curl or something, and then use manual sysupgrade command from console and override the image format check:

sysupgrade -F /tmp/filename.img
4

Hello,

thanks for the answeres. I solved it. I just forgot to boot into the second image where I have the original firmware installed. From there I can reflash the org firmware.

THX!

5

This is an ongoing issue, is there a way to get LEDE to accpet this format? or
create a flag to let users in LUCI overrride this check?

6

I think we might need to expose this flag in LuCI and offer it as override choice when the unsupported format error appears.

This somehow contradicts the intention of the feature but so did the way it was quietly slipped in without considering the usability aspects.

7

Hello,

So in my case using the wrt1900acs it is importent to flash the original imgage before reflashing lede. I had several times the case where i forgot to do this and ended up in almost "brikked" device.
This because i had than both partitions with wrt and couldn't reflash because i just had the luci to flash.

Sure you get accessbto the terminal by default and that was actually the rescue, but users with not so much knowledge would face problems.

It would be great to have the opportunity to flash from luci the default firmware and be able to overwrite both partitions which is done by the default image.

It makes thing easier and would save some support cases i guess.