Linksys ac1900v1 upgrade

Hi,
i want to replace OpenWrt 19.07.3 with the latest 21.02.1 on my linksys wrt1900ac v1; i downloaded openwrt-21.02.1-mvebu-cortexa9-linksys_wrt1900ac-v1-squashfs-factory.img and when i go to the flash section ; load img it says
Image metadata not found Use sysupgrade -F to override this check when downgrading or flashing to vendor firmware Image check failed.

The uploaded image file does not contain a supported format. Make sure that you choose the generic image format for your platform.

can i proceed?
thanks

The openwrt-21.02.1-mvebu-cortexa9-linksys_wrt1900ac-v1-squashfs-factory.img should usually only be used from the Linksys OEM Firmware. Upgrading to 21.02.0 requires the factory.img file. Don't keep settings, and you may need to force the upgrade.

You need to use factory, but will have to force and not keep settings. There is a kernel reservation space change that requires the use of factory image. There are some posts to be found on how to short circuit things so as to make the reconfiguration a little less onerous.

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hello,
well then i got lost... which one should i go for in which order :frowning:
thanks

On second thought I think @anomeome is correct - use factory and force the upgrade.

hello, okay so this one > openwrt-21.02.1-mvebu-cortexa9-linksys_wrt1900ac-v1-squashfs-factory.img
not to keep settings, and force upgrade...

hope i wont mess anything? thanks

That should be fine.

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no its not.

i flashed 20x and all worked fine, then i uploaded conf from backup 19x version and I cant access router anymore. is that kind of joke? dont tell me that conf from openwrt 19x is not compatible with 20x?

i cant access router anymore... so its dead/bricked?

Restoring backup is the same as keeping your config, so don't do that. Use the power switch to go back from whence you came; there are two partitions.

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@anomeome so it means that upgrade from 19x to 20x means to Configure manually everything from scratch?

Not sure what do u mean to use the power switch to go back? i powered it on/off and nothing happened

There are shortcuts, iit is really just /etc/config/network that is the show stopper; you can set it aside if you like.
toggle it.

@anomeome i just presset reset button for 10 sec.

Well to restore 19x config was very very bad idea.

The thing is now ... that all configs are gone/ i cant restore/ i have to Manually set each configuration from version 19x ... this is something very odd... and i assume there are no tools to convert 19x to 20x confi... Noone thought that one can have really complex setup ...

is there by any chance a way to find out which configs from 19x are problematic to 20x .. so i can "copy" the rest... and not to spend 20 days configuring/tuning/migrating configuration from 19x to 20x?

thanks

Your device is an mvebu target.... this is from the upgrade guide:

" * However, there is no “keep-configuration” migration path from 19.07 to 21.02 for targets that switched from swconfig to DSA. The affected targets are: ath79 (only TP-Link TL-WR941ND), bcm4908, gemini, kirkwood, mediatek (most boards), mvebu, octeon, ramips (mt7621 subtarget only), and realtek. Check the Target column in the table below. If your device is listed, check its ** Device Page** (link in the table below) or ask on the Forum.

I think you're looking at this with the wrong perspective... it's not that nobody thought of it, but rather that there is an underlying technical necessity for the fact that there is no migration path (as mentioned above). For the most part, this affects the network setup -- other things like your dhcp file, firewall, and other non-hardware-bound files will probably migrate properly, but you need to do it manually.

EDIT: if nothing else, you can always use your config backup as a reference, so you know what your old settings were as you re-create them. It's not that hard in most cases to get it working. The exception is the DSA config itself (relevant if you're using VLANs) -- you'll need to learn about the process of configuring that new structure

@psherman thank you for the links and explanation ...
okay i will try to copy paste files other then network to see how it works.

just double check
netgear r7800 is ipq806x so it can be safe to backup 19x settings/conf and then upload on 20x.

thanks

It should not be a big task, you can take a backup, extract contents, and set aside or modify the configs of concern. Or, you can set them aside on your currently running partition, but this means you are making mods to your good'n; choose you poison. Of concern:

cd /etc/config
mv network network.BAK
mv system system.BAK

also /etc/firewall.user if you made mods.

If radios are of concern use 21.x snapshot or master

I would suggest using a file compare program to compare the 19.07 backup configs you saved, to the new 21.02.1 configs.

Makes it easier to use the old configs as a reference.

I use Beyond Compare (there is a free trial), but there are other free options.

so basically dump "vanila" 20x config, then run compare; and replace 20x files with 19x content?
thx

No, you can't just "replace" the content...because some have changed in version 21.

Example...

seems there are so many issues, all i replaced was /etc/config/dhcp and i added "config host" now basically i cant access my local pcs connected via lan ... no active leases ... something is purely messed up.

and no idea even i disabled ipv6 - why one of my host gets
IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : fddf:4363:a8a0::777
IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : fddf:4363:a8a0:0:2401:1800:7088:365e
Temporary IPv6 Address. . . . . . : fddf:4363:a8a0:0:211a:1ec6:da46:202e
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::2401:1800:7088:365e%8