EAP615-Wall reverting from OpenWrt to OEM fails

[ed8]

In https://forum.openwrt.org/t/eap615-wall-openwrt-or-stock/ I wanted to compare stock OEM vs OpenWrt wifi on a spare EAP615 device.

However I am struggling to revert from OpenWrt (SNAPSHOT r24723-7ddd3abd27) back to stock OEM firmware.

Following instructions from https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/troubleshooting/vendor_specific_rescue#rescue_firmware_partition I did the following

• unplug poe cable from eap615
• set pc ip 192.168.0.10, netmask 255.255.255.0
• plug ethernet cable in lan1 port (at the bottom of the EAP615)
• keep reset button pressed, plug poe cable, when led on turns on release reset button (takes about 10sec)
• browse to 192.168.0.254, upload (renamed file) EAP615_1.1.6.bin (I also tried original .bin filename and .zip filename)

however at 40% I always get a message Firmware upgrade failed.

Has anyone succeeded in the past to revert to stock on this device?

[Nihilokrat]

Try renaming the file to "factory.bin" only. Additionally, you may want to try a different firmware version to check whether both tests return the same error. I might missremember, but the latter change worked for one of my resets.

[mk24]

It's not clear whether you did this or not, but the file from TP-Link has to be unzipped on a PC first. Then upload the bin file that is inside the zip.

[ed8]

I downloaded and unzipped fw 1.1.0, 1.1.3, 1.1.4 and 1.1.6 and tried to flash with bin file renamed to factory.bin but got some error.

On a sidenote: this EAP615 had originally stock 1.1.7 installed - possibly I need to wait till TP-link offers this version on their website.
(related to https://forum.openwrt.org/t/eap615-wall-installation-fails-with-failed-to-check-for-new-update/)

edit:
on the tp-link NL website 1.1.6 is highest version,
on the tp-link EN website I found version 1.2.3
--but unfortunately the error remained

[Nihilokrat]

Maybe it is worth a try to contact them and explain that you bought a used one with a different firmware installed and want to use stock. The seller told you 1.1.7 was previously installed and your tests indicate that 1.1.7 is necessary to revert to OEM. If not, they might hint on how to apply other versions.

[Ruscal]

I've encountered this problem before with other TP-Link devices.

This may or may not be helpful:

https://oldwiki.archive.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer-c20i

If you can't communicate with the device even using TFTP now, you'll have to resort to using the serial console.

[woodhead]

I was able to revert several EAP235-wall devices with sysupgrade using a firmware generated with tplink-safeloader. The only weird part was that OpenWRT password was retained. I'm not sure if this works with EAP265-wall.

[ed8]

Many thanks!

I downloaded firmware 1.2.3 from https://www.tp-link.com/uk/support/download/eap615-wall/#Firmware, converted it to a sysupgrade image per https://forum.openwrt.org/t/online-tool-to-convert-tp-link-stock-firmwares-to-sysupgrade-compatible-images/ using https://argsnd.github.io/tp-link-stock-firmware-converter/index.html

Flashed it with force upgrade and am now back on stock.

• Version is reported as 1.1.9 Build 20231009 Rel. 23497(4555)
• I had to login with root / openwrt password