LEDE on TP-Link Archer C50, but the install Instructions is in polish

rodoviario · January 22, 2018, 11:14am

I know what you mean about the courage. If you have a limited budget, and have just bought a new router to your house, it doesn't cause any good impression (to your daughter or wife) to brick it on the very first days.

cedcuc17 · January 25, 2018, 10:05pm

I would just make bold “EU V1” device needs latest factory-eu image from Lede snapshots. No need to downgrade or sysupgrade. It just works using

Tp-link firmware
Update using factory-eu image directly within the tp-link update menu AND not doing it over wifi but cable.
After reboot, don’t panic if nothing append, wait 2 min, then press the WPS button and wait 30s.
Now you should have an OpenWrt wifi in your range. From there connect to it using ssh (as Snapshot version of Lede have per default no GUI). Set root password and install GUI package.
Connect using a web browser on 192.161.1.1 and use the GUI to finish the configuration.

dude789 · April 23, 2018, 10:11pm

Thanks a lot guys. Being a noob here and doing it for first time, I was able to upgrade my router to LEDE 17.01.4 from stock firmware successfully.

Thanks again.

Update- Guys, need some help
I was trying to install usb storage support
package installs properly but when i try to insmod- It fails with an errors like these.

Commands used-

insmod ehci-hcd
insmod usbcore

Errors-

failed to insert /lib/modules/4.4.92/ehci-hcd.ko
failed to insert /lib/modules/4.4.92/usbcore.ko

Update 2 - It works and finally installed necessary modules. Had to install USB 1.1 packages first.

mk24 · April 24, 2018, 12:31am

usb-common must be inserted first, as usbcore depends on it. Then usbcore, and finally ehci-hcd.

On a release build for a model with USB, those are all usually already inserted at boot. Does lsmod show them?

Though the error you would get then ought to be "module already loaded".

dude789 · April 24, 2018, 12:59am

Thanks for responding. Finally, Installed them all.
Started researching to view all my partitions as only one of them is mounted right now. Will be happy if any ideas come from you.

Followed this link as tutorial
https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/usb.storage#required_packages_for_usb_storage

dude789 · April 28, 2018, 3:17pm

If anybody active who is using this device, Can you please check this thread and input your suggestions for slow 2.4GHz performance

stevemayster · July 3, 2018, 7:54pm

Hello.
I know it's pretty old thread and nobody like necroposting but i need help.
Recently i bought Archer C50 V1 (RU) and try to install OpenWRT on it. I try all instruction but it's just not works.
I try first install like in @danghuy1994 recepies but interface is not coming up, on router just power and LAN led light.
Same for @steel_rat recepie.
At now i on old stock firmware from @danghuy1994 and don't know what to do

tmomas · July 3, 2018, 9:06pm

The methods described on the devicepage didn't work for you?

https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer-c50#oem_installation_using_the_tftp_method
https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer-c50#tftp_recovery_de-bricking

stevemayster · July 4, 2018, 4:21am

Hello.I try to use latest firmware-eu too,but still no luck. Only firmware i can flash properly (from tftp) it's stock firmware(archerC50v1recovery from this page) After what if i try to load custom firmware from gui router just rebooted in the middle of process and show 2 solid led - power and lan(connected to my PC)

stevemayster · July 7, 2018, 2:39pm

Hello, again. I'm finally able to flash lede and start wi-fi after. I just pressed wi-fi button and all ok. I use snapshot from this site http://dl.eko.one.pl

shaun · August 1, 2018, 8:45pm

Hi, thanks everyone so far for their input in how to go about flashing the firmware (EU version). I am wondering if anyone has additional thoughts to solve my particular issue.

My steps were very similar to those of @cedcuc17 on 9 January. I tried flashing from the web interface but had forgotten to plug in my LAN cable so it didn't work and broke the installation. I then trimmed the first 512 bytes. Hoping I did that correctly with this command:
dd if=openwrt-ramips-mt7620-ArcherC50v1-squashfs-factory-eu.bin of=openwrt-ramips-mt7620-ArcherC50v1-squashfs-factory-eu-trim.bin skip=1 bs=512

I then flashed via TFTP, the server log shows the file completed sending, and after some time the LEDs on the router went out. I waited some time longer (at least 5 minutes) for the router to reboot, and nothing seemed to happen, so I rebooted it myself, and again all the LEDs went out (besides for the Internet LED quickly going orange on boot).

So where I'm at now is rather strange. My laptop IP is set at 192.168.0.66, and when the router is switched on and connected via Ethernet cable, my laptop detects a wired connection. However through the "ip route" command I get a gateway of 192.168.0.0, and DHCP does not work. So I'm not able to find a web interface, and I've also tried putting my laptop in the 192.168.1.0 range to see if there's anything there, and using nmap on both ranges I can't find any gateways. The LEDs still don't light up, besides for the Internet icon in orange on boot. The exception is that the Internet LED stays orange when my LAN cable is in port 2 (usually I'm keeping it in port 1), otherwise the LED is off and there is no indication the device is even powered on.

I'm unable to get back into TFTP mode by holding reset on boot (although I have no visual indicator as the LEDs are always off, but I'm not able to transfer any files). Does anyone have any thoughts of things to try? Have I fully bricked the device?

Thanks in advance!

rodoviario · August 5, 2018, 8:54pm

Just for curiosity, what version of openwrt are you trying... because in the dd command, you are using a file that doesn't mention the version.

Today I saw (and downloaded) the new re-merged version of LEDE / openwrt, but feel a little eager of trying out the EU version of sysupgrade.Does anyone with this (EU version) router has tryed to upgrade from 17.01.4 yet? Can anyone report if at least the upgrade is working?

shaun · August 7, 2018, 4:52pm

I used the ArcherC50v1-squashfs-factory-eu.bin snapshot found here.

I think my issue is the same as found in this post, and I will need to use an SPI programmer to fix it.

rodoviario · August 11, 2018, 10:56am

I'm sorry to hear that its bricked. Only a question remain: Why do you use snapshots, having the last stable release for LEDE here and the first stable merged (openwrt + LEDE) release here?

Someone from this thread that have already updated from LEDE 17.01.4 to openwrt 18.06.0 successfully?

danghuy1994 · August 18, 2018, 2:41pm

I already have. It works perfectly.

rodoviario · August 20, 2018, 12:46pm

So you have updated to latest... and is de EU version of the archer? please confirm and I will opdate too.

Thanks in advance!

danghuy1994 · August 21, 2018, 6:01am

Yes it's the EU version. I'm upgrading my router to 18.06.1.

P/s: if you upgrading from 17.x I suggest you should configure your router from scratch and dump old configs.

rodoviario · August 21, 2018, 12:07pm

Thanks for the advice. I will do it as soon as the demand for using it levels down to standard/idle and I will report

rodoviario · February 3, 2019, 12:02am

Just installed OpenWrt 18.06.2 sysupdate over 17.x and followed the recomendation of reconfigure from scratch. Everything back to normal (and updated). Last step that I missed to "capture" is the root overlay and swap options (that I used to have enabled with an external usb harddisk). So I also confirm that upgrading from LEDE works for archer c50 v1 EU

jackslackofsurprise · April 15, 2019, 1:56am

Hey guys, do you know if the above steps would work with the Archer C50 v2?

I have:
Firmware Version: 0.8.0 0.3 v005c.1 Build 160801 Rel.73434n
Hardware Version: Archer C50 v2 00000000

Thank you in advance.