DLink: DIR-505: Installation sucessful, but OEM FW starts

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi,

I followed steps 1..11 on https://oldwiki.archive.openwrt.org/toh/d-link/dir-505 to install openwrt-19.07.0-ar71xx-generic-dir-505-a1-squashfs-factory.bin

Everything looks good, I get progress reports, and a confirmation message that the firmware was successfully upgraded.

But when I repower the DIR-505 the original dlink FW start again :-/

Is there anything else I can do except repowering the device to get the openwrt FW started instead of the D-Link FW?

I appreciate any advice or hint...

Thanks
Rainer

2

That is curious, very curious. I'm not trying to be condescending, but are you sure you're looking at OpenWrt (192.168.1.1) and not at a a cached version of the old web interface (192.168.0.1)?

3

@rdorsch Like jow suggested on IRC (and takimata above), try Shift+Ctrl+R on your web page to make sure it's not a cached version you're looking at.

4

Just to document what is discussed on IRC (for anybody else running into a similar issue):

  • Shift+Ctrl+R does not help, I consistently get the D-Link login page
  • Used Chromium on Debian Linux to download the openwrt image
  • The D-Link DIR shows the download progress up to 100% and reports "Upgrade successfully!"
5

Not trying to say it's the issue, or a solution, but just to drive this point home: OpenWrt's web interface doesn't even use the same address as the D-Link one. How do you expect to get the new web interface if you still call up the wrong address?

Also, did you reset your local ethernet interface to DHCP? You would have had to configure it at 192.168.0.(not 1)/24 to reach the D-Link emergency flash facility, which is the wrong subnet for default OpenWrt.

As far as I remember that's just a simple time-based JavaScript counter that has no way of knowing if the flashing process actually was successful. It just makes sure you wait for x minutes before rebooting.

I have one or two D-Link DIR-505s that are actually slated for a 19.07 upgrade, I can try it on one of mine ... but not within the next few hours.

6

To summarize IRC again:

I can also log into the router with the original D-link FW....makes it unlikely for me that the d-link FW is not there anymore.

Also I realized that flashing the OEM FW does not bring the new FW!

In the meantime, I found that openwrt can be installed by using the FW upgrade mechanism in the standard web interface (i.e. not the rescue web page), exactly the same way as described for upgrading the firmware in the manual.

Somewhat scary, that the rescue path does not work, but as long as nothing goes wrong it seems to work....

7

@takimata: Do you know if your devices reboot automatically after the FW update using the rescue web page or did you have to do a manual (power-on-) reset on the DIR-505 ?

At least here nothing happens automatically.

8

I just went through the process, flashing openwrt-19.07.0-ar71xx-generic-dir-505-a1-squashfs-factory.bin through the DIR-505's "D-Link Router Recovery Mode" facility, and I'm sorry to say that it ... just worked as intended.

Just to make sure, I did it on both of my DIR-505s, without any issues.

They do. As mentioned, the percentage counter on the "flashing now" page is a simple JavaScript timer of 120 seconds. Around 67% in, after roughly 90 seconds, the DIR-505 resets and boots to OpenWrt, which needs another minute or so to set up for the first time until the LED goes solid green. After changing the ethernet interface to 192.168.1.2 I can confirm via SSH that the DIR-505 is indeed running 19.07.0 now.

I don't know how to help with your problem because I simply cannot reproduce it. Sorry.

9

Thanks @takimata this was already quite useful information.

Which HW revisiou and browser/OS combination do you have.

The LED is flashing red if the device is in recovery mode.

What happens to the LED during these 90 secs to the LED (i.e. between starting the download and the reboot)?

Does the LED continue to blink, stay red, or stay off or something different?

10

The DIR-505s are both "505L A2" with the exchangeable power plug. I'm flashing through Firefox on Windows 10.

During flashing the LED goes solid red. Around 60% it briefly goes off and on again, indicating the reboot.

11

Just to stay in sync with IRC:
curl http://192.168.0.1/cgi/index -F files=@openwrt-ath79-tiny-dlink_dir-615-e4-squashfs-factory.bin

results in the same behavior as Chromium@Debian (LED stays red, but no progress anymore)

12

With firefox@win10 I see exactly the same behavior, works flawless. Thanks for sharing the detailed information.

Now I just would be curious to understand what is different on linux, I never would have exected that such a simple page

triggers such an issue.

13

That is curious and certainly worth investigating. But at least it means it's not an issue with OpenWrt or the 19.07 build, and that's a relief.

14

Just two more datapoints:

  • curl http://192.168.0.1/cgi/index -F files=@openwrt-ath79-tiny-dlink_dir-615-e4-squashfs-factory.bin works in Windows 10 but not on Debian Linux 10
  • PaulFertser reported on IRC, that he saw too many TCP retries on an old D-Link device, that progress was too low. This does not seem to be the case here, here is a wireshark log
    http://scw.bokomoko.de/~rd/dir-505-wireshark.pcapng