While trying to get my TP-Link TL-WR1043ND Version 3 to 18.06.02 I inadvertently (dont ask) installed
SNAPSHOT r9298-8c9f255 / LuCI Master (git-19.038.66435-4e5111e)
Before I screw this thing up any more is there some standard proc for flashing from a snapshot to a stable release version (in this case 18.06.02) ?
I can do all that but there is no way to do it the lazy way via LUCI ? I tried and I believe it complained with
'The uploaded image file does not contain a supported format' . Asked if I wished to 'force' which didn't seem like a good idea .
You can always flash to stock firmware and then flash to 18.06.2 from there, if you want to be safe. It is fairly easy to do on the wr1043nd v3.
To flash to stock:
Download the TL-WR1043nd v3 Firmware (150514) from TP-Link's website. (150514 will allow you to flash OpenWRT images)
Unzip the Firmware. Rename the .bin file to something shorter. In this example I'll use 'wr1043ndv3.bin'
SCP 'wr1043ndv3.bin' in to the /tmp directory on the router
SSH in to the router's /tmp directory
Execute the following command: dd if=wr1043ndv3.bin of=tplink.bin skip=257 bs=512
(Stripping the uboot bootloader off the TP-Link firmware. If successful should have the output 15872+0 records in, 15872+0 records out)
Flash the stripped stock firmware (tplink.bin) using the command: mtd -r write tplink.bin firmware
Wait until router reboots and loads up. Flash OpenWRT 18.06.2 via the TP-Link Router Settings at 192.168.0.1
root@OpenWrt:~# sysupgrade -T /tmp/openwrt-18.06.2-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr1043nd-v3-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
Image metadata not found
Use sysupgrade -F to override this check when downgrading or flashing to vendor firmware
Image check 'fwtool_check_image' failed.
root@OpenWrt:~
If you are now on a ath79 snapshot build, the sysupgrade in it really expects some metadata from the image, and 18.06.x does not have that in its image. So the error is quite logical.
You can override/bypass the check with "-F" option, just like your sysupgrade attempt tells you.
(Note: this of course assumes that you are trying to flash a correct image, as the checks are bypassed. You might in any case first use sha256sum to calculate the image hash in /tmo and check that from the download repo directory.)