Flashing OpenWrt on Linksys MR8300 - partially bricked

[jsilva-iii]

HI - didn't use the sysupgrade, but I managed to install the MR8300 on one partiion and the EA8300 on the other. With the above command I was hoping to erase all the openwrt distros - I now have a working Linksys factory boot and a broken Openwrt that soils itself on boot... After thre attmpets the router boots into linksys. Just waiting for a while and I will test the stock FW against my telco router and see what throughputs are like.

[    2.368262] UBIFS error (pid 1): ubifs_mount: cannot open "ubi0:ubifs", error -19
[    2.375416] VFS: Cannot open root device "ubi0:ubifs" or unknown-block(31,11): error -19
[    2.383419] Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
[    2.391742] 1f00            1024 mtdblock0  (driver?)
[    2.396773] 1f01            1024 mtdblock1  (driver?)
[    2.401808] 1f02            1024 mtdblock2  (driver?)
[    2.406842] 1f03             512 mtdblock3  (driver?)
[    2.411876] 1f04             512 mtdblock4  (driver?)
[    2.416913] 1f05             512 mtdblock5  (driver?)
[    2.421946] 1f06            2048 mtdblock6  (driver?)
[    2.426981] 1f07             512 mtdblock7  (driver?)
[    2.432015] 1f08             256 mtdblock8  (driver?)
[    2.437050] 1f09             256 mtdblock9  (driver?)
[    2.442085] 1f0a           90112 mtdblock10  (driver?)
[    2.447207] 1f0b           87040 mtdblock11  (driver?)
[    2.452326] 1f0c           90112 mtdblock12  (driver?)
[    2.457450] 1f0d           87040 mtdblock13  (driver?)
[    2.462571] 1f0e            1024 mtdblock14  (driver?)
[    2.467693] 1f0f           72192 mtdblock15  (driver?)
[    2.472811] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(31,11)
[    2.481235] CPU: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 3.14.77 #1
[    2.487253] [<c021f768>] (unwind_backtrace) from [<c021c63c>] (show_stack+0x10/0x14)
[    2.494958] [<c021c63c>] (show_stack) from [<c03d2ba8>] (dump_stack+0x80/0xa0)
[    2.502161] [<c03d2ba8>] (dump_stack) from [<c0230950>] (panic+0x84/0x1e4)
[    2.509021] [<c0230950>] (panic) from [<c088e09c>] (mount_block_root+0x260/0x2a8)
[    2.516485] [<c088e09c>] (mount_block_root) from [<c088e1d0>] (prepare_namespace+0x88/0x1c4)
[    2.524901] [<c088e1d0>] (prepare_namespace) from [<c088dce4>] (kernel_init_freeable+0x184/0x1d4)
[    2.533758] [<c088dce4>] (kernel_init_freeable) from [<c020cc08>] (kernel_init+0x8/0xfc)
[    2.541832] [<c020cc08>] (kernel_init) from [<c0208d20>] (ret_from_fork+0x14/0x34)
[    2.549380] CPU2: stopping
[    2.552067] CPU: 2 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/2 Not tainted 3.14.77 #1
[    2.558066] [<c021f768>] (unwind_backtrace) from [<c021c63c>] (show_stack+0x10/0x14)
[    2.565786] [<c021c63c>] (show_stack) from [<c03d2ba8>] (dump_stack+0x80/0xa0)
[    2.572995] [<c03d2ba8>] (dump_stack) from [<c021ea10>] (handle_IPI+0xb8/0x140)
[    2.580285] [<c021ea10>] (handle_IPI) from [<c02084fc>] (gic_handle_irq+0x58/0x60)
[    2.587834] [<c02084fc>] (gic_handle_irq) from [<c0209580>] (__irq_svc+0x40/0x70)
[    2.595293] Exception stack(0xdf4c7fa0 to 0xdf4c7fe8)
[    2.600337] 7fa0: ffffffed 00000000 1f317000 c0209fc0 df4c6000 df4c6030 10c0387d c092af08
[    2.608493] 7fc0: 8020406a 410fc075 00000000 00000000 00000000 df4c7fe8 c0219ee8 c0219eec
[    2.616648] 7fe0: 60000013 ffffffff
[    2.620127] [<c0209580>] (__irq_svc) from [<c0219eec>] (arch_cpu_idle+0x38/0x5c)
[    2.627508] [<c0219eec>] (arch_cpu_idle) from [<c026670c>] (cpu_startup_entry+0xa4/0x108)
[    2.635666] [<c026670c>] (cpu_startup_entry) from [<802085a4>] (0x802085a4)
[    2.642604] CPU1: stopping
[    2.645296] CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Not tainted 3.14.77 #1
[    2.651297] [<c021f768>] (unwind_backtrace) from [<c021c63c>] (show_stack+0x10/0x14)
[    2.659014] [<c021c63c>] (show_stack) from [<c03d2ba8>] (dump_stack+0x80/0xa0)
[    2.666221] [<c03d2ba8>] (dump_stack) from [<c021ea10>] (handle_IPI+0xb8/0x140)
[    2.673512] [<c021ea10>] (handle_IPI) from [<c02084fc>] (gic_handle_irq+0x58/0x60)
[    2.681065] [<c02084fc>] (gic_handle_irq) from [<c0209580>] (__irq_svc+0x40/0x70)
[    2.688521] Exception stack(0xdf4c5fa0 to 0xdf4c5fe8)
[    2.693565] 5fa0: ffffffed 00000000 1f30f000 c0209fc0 df4c4000 df4c4030 10c0387d c092af08
[    2.701724] 5fc0: 8020406a 410fc075 00000000 00000000 00000000 df4c5fe8 c0219ee8 c0219eec
[    2.709875] 5fe0: 60000013 ffffffff
[    2.713355] [<c0209580>] (__irq_svc) from [<c0219eec>] (arch_cpu_idle+0x38/0x5c)
[    2.720734] [<c0219eec>] (arch_cpu_idle) from [<c026670c>] (cpu_startup_entry+0xa4/0x108)
[    2.728892] [<c026670c>] (cpu_startup_entry) from [<802085a4>] (0x802085a4)
[    2.735831] CPU3: stopping
[    2.738525] CPU: 3 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/3 Not tainted 3.14.77 #1
[    2.744525] [<c021f768>] (unwind_backtrace) from [<c021c63c>] (show_stack+0x10/0x14)
[    2.752246] [<c021c63c>] (show_stack) from [<c03d2ba8>] (dump_stack+0x80/0xa0)
[    2.759451] [<c03d2ba8>] (dump_stack) from [<c021ea10>] (handle_IPI+0xb8/0x140)
[    2.766741] [<c021ea10>] (handle_IPI) from [<c02084fc>] (gic_handle_irq+0x58/0x60)
[    2.774292] [<c02084fc>] (gic_handle_irq) from [<c0209580>] (__irq_svc+0x40/0x70)
[    2.781750] Exception stack(0xdf4c9fa0 to 0xdf4c9fe8)
[    2.786793] 9fa0: ffffffed 00000000 1f31f000 c0209fc0 df4c8000 df4c8030 10c0387d c092af08
[    2.794951] 9fc0: 8020406a 410fc075 00000000 00000000 00000000 df4c9fe8 c0219ee8 c0219eec
[    2.803104] 9fe0: 60000013 ffffffff
[    2.806583] [<c0209580>] (__irq_svc) from [<c0219eec>] (arch_cpu_idle+0x38/0x5c)
[    2.813965] [<c0219eec>] (arch_cpu_idle) from [<c026670c>] (cpu_startup_entry+0xa4/0x108)
[    2.822119] [<c026670c>] (cpu_startup_entry) from [<802085a4>] (0x802085a4)
[    2.829064] Rebooting in 3 seconds..
Format: Log Type - Time(microsec) - Message - Optional Info
Log Type: B - Since Boot(Power On Reset),  D - Delta,  S - Statistic

[Bobcat]

From factory firmware, install OpenWRT with http://192.168.1.1/fwupdate.html (replace IP address with proper if required)

Use released factory 19.07.4 EA8300 file, wait until unit reboots before changing your browser page.

Luci should be available to login...

[jsilva-iii]

Once it is configured - I get aprompted a username and password (which I provide), I get the upload link, but then I get :

 {
"result": "ErrorUnauthorized"
}

If I factory reset the device, I am unable to access the fwupdate link - it just redirect one to the setup
I will test against my telco router now using stock and see how it performs/works. I am able via the serial console to log on - they seem to be running a rather old build

Linux Linksys03475 3.14.77 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun May 10 22:15:20 PDT 2020 armv7l GNU/Linux

Also noticed that it doesn't use the 100-144 chanels (DFS functionality), which openwrt was happy to use, I am in Canada.

Against the telco router, I get 709/850 - same as behind my dlink. On rebooting there is no problem.. Right now I am going to take a break as I have a working connection again and figure out what to do.
Right now I have two issues i believe:

With any of Openwrt FWs I can get it to boot and connect once. After a reboot it take for ever to allow any internet traffic. I can only presume that there is some issue with the HW I have and the Openwrt and my Telco.
The other is with the speed of the device I can achieve once it is actually on line.

Thank you once again for your help.

[Bobcat]

User: admin
PW: admin

[cybrnook]

You have a bad nand flash, I would rma the unit.

[jsilva-iii]

Gents

Thank you very much for your time and help - I contacted Linksys and they confirmed it's defective. So I'm going to send it back. I'm giving up I will get an WRT3200ACM instead, seems opwnrt is installed.

[cybrnook]

MR8300 is now officially in Master

Support in the stable branch will likely come during the next release.

[dme8a8]

@cybrnook
Is the radio calibration for the MR8300 included in your git commit?

[cybrnook]

Yes.

I binwalked the oem firmware to get the calibration data, repackaged it for the commit and also submitted to the ath upstream project to get accepted in the maintained boarddata package.

And actually the pr was already been accepted a week ago, so you can download the snapshot from owrt directly or compile directly from master. No need to use my links anymore.