I have made a new build 19.07.3 for EA8100. It comes with LuCI. But if you are already on 18.06 then the "upgrade" might be a bit hairy. I wrote down some instructions on my wiki page.
Great, I am back in stock FW so will flash them accordingly and feedback. Thanks for your hard work and @vuhuy for guiding me.
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Flashed squashfs-factory.bin in Linksys OEM FW. It will not boot in openwrt at all. It either goes back to stock FW or no access. Another strange thing is in stock FW I used to access with http://192.168.1.1 but now it can only accept www.LinksysSmartWiFi.com. This happens after I reset the router.
I hand-crafted a initramfs image with an appended linksys signature. Can you try to flash it via Linksys UI: https://www.codepowered.com/openwrt/v19.07.3/linksys_ea8100/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-ea8100-initramfs-kernel-factory.img
This one has no LuCI. So please ping 192.168.1.1 until you get a response. In windows you have to ping -t 192.168.1.1 otherwise it gives up after 4 pings.
If you successfully booted it then you will need to download the squashfs-sysupgrade.bin into it and run sysupgrade with it once. (Use scp.)
I am able to flash the intramfs-kernel-factory.img and able to login using ssh and see it’s installed the FW. After putting the sysupgrade.bin in /tmp directory of the router gave the command sysupgrade -v /tmp/xxxxxxx.sysupgrade.bin and the output shows its commencing upgrade, the session terminated. However, when re-login the upgrade did not take place, meaning it’s still on previously flashed intramfs.
Update:
I also build my own image using your repository. I am able to flash that .bin file successfully. However, the 2.4GHz wireless is not working or very unstable. 5GHz is working very well and faster than before. The Linksys LED at the top of the router is not lit after upgrade.
I have uploaded the mt7621 folder to my box account. Kindly help to check.
Sigh of relief!
Heh ok. Hate to use it here but "it works for me". Anyway glad you managed to compile your own bin.
Yes 2.4Ghz is very slow here too - less than 1Mbps. Haven't noticed that till now since I mostly use wired.
I am not sure maybe nth number of time either FW should work, but it’s just my guess. I uploaded your initramfs-kernel-factory.img follow by my build. I didn’t expect that to work but to my surprise, it did. I have no confidence because this whole thing is new to me and as usual I thought I would have screwed up along the way. I won’t be able to make it without your help and @vuhuy’s guidance. Thank you all so much.
Back to the Wi-Fi issue, I am having the same issue for 2.4GHz. How about the LED?
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For the LED, there is patch in a pull request on github but I will need time to incorporate/test it.
Just to point out:
Never use DD or CAT to read/write on any router using Nand based flash, such EA7500 or EA8100.
Use nandread nandwrite nanddump instead.
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@firemelon any chance you could build an image for 21.02? Looks like there are some improvements for the MT7621. Current WiFi performance should be better than it currently is.
Thanks!
Hi Mark. Haven't got a timeline. Will post here if I get a build that looks stable enough.
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Was able to contact @angelsl who managed to get the patch into 21.02 branch. Maybe you will see a EA8100 image in rc3.
21.02 branch: https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/commits/openwrt-21.02
Commit (Jun 10):
21.02 rc3 has the build:
For EA8100 v1:
https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=21.02.0-rc3&target=ramips%2Fmt7621&id=linksys_ea8100-v1
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Many thanks and sorry for the late reply.
For info of people who are on my 19.07 images... please do not sysupgrade to 21.02. The binary formats are not compatible.
openwrt-21.02.0-rc3-ramips-mt7621-linksys_ea8100-v1-initramfs-kernel.bin: u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-5.4.124, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (Not compressed), 4912189 bytes, Sun Jun 13 22:02:19 2021, Load Address: 0x80001000, Entry Point: 0x80001000, Header CRC: 0x9C4276B9, Data CRC: 0xBC5373AC
openwrt-21.02.0-rc3-ramips-mt7621-linksys_ea8100-v1-squashfs-factory.bin: u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-5.4.124, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (Not compressed), 2357363 bytes, Sun Jun 13 22:02:19 2021, Load Address: 0x80001000, Entry Point: 0x80001000, Header CRC: 0xAC8B8E31, Data CRC: 0xC42A191A
openwrt-21.02.0-rc3-ramips-mt7621-linksys_ea8100-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin: POSIX tar archive (GNU)
19.07:
openwrt-ramips-mt7621-ea8100-initramfs-factory.img: u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-4.14.221, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (lzma), 5049994 bytes, Mon Feb 15 15:22:37 2021, Load Address: 0x80001000, Entry Point: 0x80001000, Header CRC: 0x9EAE22DC, Data CRC: 0x739C919A
openwrt-ramips-mt7621-ea8100-initramfs-kernel.bin: u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-4.14.221, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (lzma), 5049994 bytes, Mon Feb 15 15:22:37 2021, Load Address: 0x80001000, Entry Point: 0x80001000, Header CRC: 0x9EAE22DC, Data CRC: 0x739C919A
openwrt-ramips-mt7621-ea8100-squashfs-factory.img: u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-4.14.221, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (lzma), 2012291 bytes, Mon Feb 15 15:22:37 2021, Load Address: 0x80001000, Entry Point: 0x80001000, Header CRC: 0xD210527A, Data CRC: 0x404E16F6
openwrt-ramips-mt7621-ea8100-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin: u-boot legacy uImage, MIPS OpenWrt Linux-4.14.221, Linux/MIPS, OS Kernel Image (lzma), 2012291 bytes, Mon Feb 15 15:22:37 2021, Load Address: 0x80001000, Entry Point: 0x80001000, Header CRC: 0xD210527A, Data CRC: 0x404E16F6
Flashing 21.02 squashfs-sysupgrade.bin using sysupgrade in 19.07 will soft brick your router. (Sysupgrade will likely reject the image anyway, and you will have to use force flag if you really want to do it.)
If you insist, force flashing the 21.02 squashfs-factory.bin should allow you to succeed in the upgrade. (Not tested.)
Hi good day, I am newbie here. I just managed to load openwrt using initramfs v19.
If I would like to upgrade to v21, I shall choose factory.bin (21.02) with force upgrade in luci? Will factory.bin replace/overwrite Linksys OEM firmware in non booted partition ?
Before that, I failed to install factory.bin (21.02) straight from Linksys Page until I install initramfs v19.
Thanks
Force flash 21.02 squashfs-factory when you are in 19.07 should work theoretically. This is not tested. I don't have a spare ea8100 anymore to test this.
The sysupgrade in 19.05 will write to both partitions in the router. Hence there will be no more Linksys firmware.
Hi good morning, thanks for your reply. May I know how to prevent openwrt firmware write to both partitions or this only happen to 19.05 sysupgrade ?
Hi @manikpj, I hope you're doing well. I saw on this post you'd successfully recovered your Linksys EA7500 v2 back to stock FW under @vuhuy's guidance using TFTP method with USB-TTL cable (image 1). I'm having problem with my router too. I created a new thread with details and my stuck work in it. Could you please follow it and give me some advices or instruction? Thank you very much.
My thread: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/is-my-linksys-ea7500-v2-bricked-please-help/192497
