Issues with upgrading GL.iNet GL-B1300 and TP-Link TL-WR902AC to v19.07.3

First of all, many thanks to the maintainers for their ongoing efforts on the OpenWrt project.

I've just upgraded my GL.iNet GL-B1300 to v19.07.3 (from here) and that soft-bricked the router. As I was upgrading, there was this warning which I had overruled. I did untick [] Keep settings:



The router did go through the normal flashing process but after a reboot it just had not come back to life with all LEDs off. So I successfully reverted it back to v19.07.2 using UBoot TFTP method. Then I tried flashing v19.07.3 directly via UBoot, with the same results as before. So I've gone back to v19.07.2 again.

I'd be happy to help investigating it further if I could get some guidance :slight_smile:

Updated, the same thing happened to my travel router, TP-Link TL-WR902AC. Had to rollback to v19.07.2 via TFTP. Coincidentally, both routers are Atheros SoC-based.

Version 19.07.3 has not yet been officially released (as of May 18, 2020) and may still be actively being built. This can cause unexpected behaviour surrounding package installation

Now, that said, the issue you are reporting is likely not related to the above. And in actuality, I have had this problem with a WR902AC (v1) as well, for all three of the officially released 19.07 stable builds on this device (.0 - .2) -- I have had to resort to tftp recovery. I as actually planning on opening a thread about this issue if I see it happen again when I install 19.07.3 (but I am waiting for the announcement).

My guess is that there is something wrong with the sysupgrade version of the image for all 19.07 stable builds targeting the WR902AC and possibly others in the ar71xx target set (I haven't tested any snapshots). The factory image works just fine, as evidenced by the fact that the tftp recovery does work properly.

I can also report that my Ubiquiti RouterStation Pro (now running the ath79 target builds, previously on ar71xx) has upgraded properly each time, so if I had to wager, there is something broken in the soon-to-be-deprecated ar71xx target for at least some devices on the sysupgrade images.

I will be waiting for the official release announcement before I run my upgrades, but I'll report back here about the status of my WR902ACv1 sysupgrade and hopefully we can figure out if there is a problem and how to fix it in the sysupgrade images.

1 Like

You're right. I just noticed that images for all my devices were allready built on May 17th and couldn't help mysef trying them out.

My guess is that there is something wrong with the sysupgrade version of the image for all 19.07 stable builds targeting the WR902AC and possibly others in the ar71xx target set (I haven't tested any snapshots). The factory image works just fine, as evidenced by the fact that the tftp recovery does work properly.

Indeed, in case with WR902AC this seems to be specific to sysupgrade. Based on your reply, I've just tried flashing the v19.07.3 factory image for WR902AC_v1 via TFTP and it did go through. Thanks for your help!

Unfortantely, this is not the case with GL.iNet GL-B1300, which is Atheros QCA8075/IPQ4028-based. I couldn't get running the current v19.07.03 image by any means.

So my TL-WR902AC v1 failed to upgrade properly using the sysupgrade process. This is the 4th time I've had this issue, so I am fairly confident that it is an issue with the sysupgrade image for this device.

I was able to easily unbrick using the tftp recovery method and the 'factory' image.

When I get some time, I'll start another thread specifically for this issue.

2 Likes

I am upgrading one b1300 regularly with no issues, but I build images myself. Did you verify a checksum in case the download got corrupted?

1 Like

Did you verify a checksum in case the download got corrupted?

A good point, I didn't. I don't have access to the router right now, but I've just re-downloaded the image from here. The file hasn't changed since it was built on May 17th. If I try to calc the checksum:

sha256sum -b openwrt-19.07.3-ipq40xx-generic-glinet_gl-b1300-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

It produces the same 26edf2941b0a060766f0c5c4adf6a92da2fa00d89d2717948abfb19788d6246a hash as in the download folder, but is still different from the picture in my original post. I'll try again as soon as I get to the router.

Updated, I flashed the factory firmware qsdk-b1300-3.027.img via UBoot Web UI, verified the basics of the router are OK, then flashed OpenWrt v19.07.2 via UBoot TFTP, then upgraded to v19.07.3 via luci sysupgrade. This time, the hashes did match and I didn't not have any issue. I conclude the original glitch must have been something very specific to my router at that time.

I created a new thread specifically for the WR902AC v1.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 10 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.