[DIR-1960] Install fails

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi,

Seeing that it is listed as a supported device, I just bought a D-Link DIR-1960.

However, I haven't had much luck in getting the OpenWRT firmware to flash.

I tried uploading the factory image using all browsers I could get hold of. Even FF (also in private mode), Chromium and Edge on Windows 10. No success in even getting the upload to start.

Using the trick of loading the page, selecting the firmware, then going into factory reset again and then pressing the upload button yields nothing more than "Upgrade Failed!".

The curl upload of the firmware, which should negate the browser issues, seems to succeed at first, but a reboot never happens and after manual reboot the dlink software is still present.

I also tried the telnet exploit, but although the python script contained in D-LINK recovery mode (DIR-882 DIR-878 DIR-867) claims success, no telnet access was possible.

I tried all of this with the original FW 1.01 and also with the latest 1.11.

I used factory images openwrt 21.02.0, 22.03.5 and 23.05.0-rc2.

Does anyone have any further ideas short of opening the case and soldering?

2

Win on physical machine or
Win in VM on Linux?

3

Good question. I don't own a windows laptop, but I could use my brother's. So, a physical Windows machine.

4

Perhaps some sort of security protection is kicking in when doing web upload.

We're talking about 128 mb flash here, writing to it would certainly take more time than usual. After the image is transferred to the router, it goes into router's RAM memory, then it starts writing to the flash, which takes time to finish.

I really hope that you've waited long enough for the writing operation to complete before doing manual reboot.

1 Like
5

Have you tried it like it's described in the commit?

Installation:

  • D-Link Recovery GUI: power down the router, press and hold the reset
    button, then re-plug it. Keep the reset button pressed until the power
    LED starts flashing orange, manually assign a static IP address under
    the 192.168.0.xxx subnet (e.g. 192.168.0.2) and go to http://192.168.0.1

  • Some modern browsers may have problems flashing via the Recovery GUI,
    if that occurs consider uploading the firmware through cURL:

    curl -v -i -F "firmware=@file.bin" 192.168.0.1

6

Since OP says he even tried curl, one would assume he's already been there...

I might misinterpret tough.

7

Yeah, if none of the other workarounds had helped. The mini http server implementation of the recovery boot option is somewhat broken, and regular Linux client network stack and/or curl/http libs though are serious gourmet shit, but unfortunately seems too strict/not forgiving, to compensate the broken DLink recovery network stack of lots of devices.

At least people keep reporting problems, when trying to use the recovery option of DLink routers via native installed Linux clients, while Windows clients seem to work for some reason.

8

I believe I have waited long enough. The countdown in the JavaScript on the response page waits 100 times 2.2s. I always put a sleep of 220s, then I waited for at least 5 minutes more. On one occasion even more than half an hour.

There is a report of someone having the same problem but in his case switching to Windows helped. We're now 3 years further and the browsers on Windows have changed too much it would appear.

9

Indeed. I read the commit instructions (and every other document I could find, even from DD-WRT to get some inspiration). I did try the curl command line. This got me the furthest, but alas not far enough.

10

just use a real window install Not a VM
I have some old DIR-825-B1's
and to use it's recovery interface the only way I have found
other then to install windows 9x or XP "current pc has to much ram"
was to download the last version of Netscape Navigator "not usable as a browser any more tho"