Linksys WRT3200ACM to factory firmware

#1

There is Lede Reboot SNAPSHOT r4707-3e6d303 / LuCI Master (git-17.231.35495-ad81dc1) when you try to flash "FW_WRT3200ACM_1.0.6.186168_prod.img". There is an error not the correct file. How can I return the factory firmware?

p.s. Hello. Thanks for the help. I do not know English and use Google translator.
I bought a router with openwrt
Can I explain in simple language, step by step, what should I do?

Was the wrt_ac_series page reverted in error?
#2

Regrettably, someone had their own ideas for the page on the OpenWRT wiki, but try https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt_ac_series and scroll down to find the appropriate section.

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#3

So you're currently running LEDE Snapshot r4707 and trying to flash OEM 1.0.6.186168, or you tried flashing LEDE, were unsuccessful at doing so, then had an issue flashing OEM?

  • If it's the former, newer WRT3200ACM's were manufactured with WinBond NAND flash, of which requires patches to be applied to the OpenWrt images before flashing.
    • If this is the issue, there's a thread that discusses this, else I believe @davidc502's builds have the patches built in.

  • If it's the latter, you may have to flash the OEM fw via serial

#4

What's this in reference to?

  • The WRT AC Series ToH wiki was written by the WRT AC Series community over a one year period between 2015 - 2016 (or it may have been 2016 - 2017), with all community members, at that time, deciding on, and approving, the layout of the WRT AC Series ToH page.

    • While I was, and continue to be, the main maintainer of that ToH page, every formatting change that was done to it was reviewed by all members at that time, who then either signed off on the changes, or directed, by community input, what changes should and should not be made.

      • In other words, while I may be the main maintainer, which is solely due to having took the time to read through the numerous DokuWiki plugins on wiki formatting, my contribution has been quite small, as it was the Community who decided on the formatting and layout.

        • I have frequently tried to get community members to contribute to this ToH wiki, as I still have a master list of items that still need to be added (I maintain an archive in Outlook of most of the conversations regarding the content, formatting, and layout of the WRT AC Series wiki), however, minus the members that update the ToH wiki with new content (changed links, etc.), I haven't received a single interested response from anyone from 2016 to the present.
          • What is getting old is having people who have no interest in contributing to the ToH criticizing the way the Community chose to have it formatted.
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#5

Openwrt uses different format for sysupgrade, so the OEM image gets disqualified.

Just wget the image file to /tmp and then use -F flag (force) with sysupgrade to flash it from console.
sysupgrade -F -n image

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#6

Is this via both LuCI and CLI? If so, I'll add it to the ToH.

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#7

Both LuCI and console use the same sysupgrade script, so yes, the format check error is valid both (and has been that way since Nov 2016).

You can't change the options in LuCI, so you need to flash via console if you want to override image format check. A hint for that was added already in Nov 2016 to the console sysupgrade.

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#8

i admire you feeling responsible for the WRT ToH page, but I dont really feel like contributing again, as it feels like waste of time adding correct input that you feel like removing cmpletely: I have recently added information about the firmware partition alternation schematics of the WRT series and how it works.

Which you completely removed, pointing out that this should not be mentioned here on the WRT ToH page all, claiming it would be a generic openwrt thing.

Well sorry to say, but most other routers do not have 2 firmware partitions and a lot of other routers do not have recovery options using a serial cable. So your assumption that this is a generic thing is wrong.

Just because you have a WRT device and know it pretty well, this does not mean that other devices behave the same or that other user know about WRT series what you know.

Thats feels a bit arrogant, that you claim that no one else wants to participate. I do want, but you wont allow it

(Sorry jeff, for incorrectly referring to you, meant JW)

#9

@alexmow Almost all of what you added was duplicate information contained within multiple other sections within the ToH, which i stated in the modification comment:

  • "REVERTED: Almost all info added was OpenWrt generic or redundant, covered in other sections of ToH (Introduction, Flash Layout, Flashing Firmware, etc.). | New info was kept and discombobulated formatting corrected"
    • There was generic OpenWrt information in you addition, such as general information about bootloaders, of which would belong in the specific OpenWrt wiki that applies to bootloaders

If you'd like a more in depth explanation, please feel free to PM me.

#10

Hello. Thanks for the help. I do not know English and use Google translator.
I bought a router with openwrt
Can I explain in simple language, step by step, what should I do?

#11

@alexmow Feel free to discuss this in public in a separate topic, instead of via PM.

#12

@tmomas That was implied... the point was this isn't the thread to do it in. By all means though, why don't you go back over the additions and see if their removal made sense.

  • If you believe they don't then by all means, but since the additions were covered in multiple other places within the ToH, it was abundantly clear @alexmow never bothered to read the ToH, let alone the ToC for that matter.

Also, since you invited me to this convo due to @jeff's comment, I'll again state the exact same thing I've said to you many times before: If you don't want people making use of DokuWiki plugins, then remove support for them... else stop complaining.

  • Should you wish to continue your complaints, passive agressively or otherwise, they'll be ignored, as I simply don't have the time or patience to keep going round and round with you over your dislike of the DokuWiki formatting YOU allow as the maintainer of the OpenWrt Wiki site.
#13

@tmomas Since you clearly don't care to do your own due diligence, and you want this done publicly:

  • @alexmow "All devices of the WRT AC series have 2 independent options, to recover from a failed flash attempt, otherwise bricked state or messed up configuration (as long as the hardware is not damaged)."
  • @alexmow "The device bootloader is a small partition separated from the firmware partitions. If one (or both) firmware partition is broken, the device may not boot properly to the firmware, but you can still use the bootloader and its recovery function, to repair the firmware. This allows to recover from a bricked router using TFTP software. This option requires a USB-TTL or USB-UART cable. See the video tutorial section for a how-to."
  • @alexmow "Furthermore, the WRT AC series devices have 2 fully independent firmware partitions. If you break the firmware in the currently active partition, you can use the other partition to reboot back to a fully working system. Each partition has its own settings and does not share settings with the other partition. The following specifics apply:"
  • @alexmow "Both the OpenWrt and the vendor firmware flash function will automatically alternate between the two firmware partitions after each successful firmware flash attempt, so it will first flash the firmware to the currently inactive partition and then set a flag, to switch to that partition on the next boot. So it is not up to you, to choose the installation partition. It will always flash the currently inactive partition."
    • This was not in the wiki, and in a less wordy fashion, added to the Flashing Firmware Synopsis (1st bullet):
      • Flashing occurs via a round-robin:
        • If booted to primary partition, alternate partition will be flashed, and vice versa

  • @alexmow "You can manually switch the active firmware partition to be used on the next reboot with the following options: via OpenWrt LuCI GUI [truncated], via OpenWrt SSH [truncated], via the reset/power switch [truncated]"
    • With the exception of "via OpenWrt SSH", this is covered in Firmware Recovery
    • "via OpenWrt SSH" was truncated to just "SSH" and added as a tab under Firmware Recovery

  • @alexmow "==== Reverting from OpenWrt to Linksys OEM firmware ===="
    • This already has a ToC section under Flashing Firmware: OpenWrt >> OEM

  • @alexmow "If you still have the Linksys OEM firmware in your other currently inactive partition, you can just switch partition for the next boot (See firmware recovery section for details)."
  • @alexmow "If both partitions have already been flashed to OpenWrt, you can still revert to Linksys OEM firmware easily, simply by flashing the Linksys OEM firmware using the OpenWrt GUI flash functions."
  • @alexmow "OpenWrt builds before ~May 2018 have required to use the OpenWrt command line for this, because the OpenWrt GUI at that time was reported to be unable to flash Linksys firmware, due to the Linksys OEM firmware using a different checksum algorithm. According to the LEDE forum, newer builds now support flashing the OEM firmware from the OpenWrt GUI. The command line, if needed, has a '-F' parameter than force-ignores checking the checksum. If you want to revert with the command line:"
    • Had this been under the OpenWrt >> OEM I likely wouldn't have touched it, however since it was abundantly obvious @alexmow did not even attempt to read the ToH, let alone the ToC [Table of Contents], and specified no source material, I removed it.
      • When the WRT AC Series Community re-wrote the WRT AC Series ToH wiki, numerous members objected to stating anywhere in the wiki to utilize sysupgrade's force option, due to a router being bricked if used incorrectly.
        • Granted, there was a single section (Third Party Builds: arokh) where a warning wrap was added to inform users that if they utilized @arokh's firmware, they must flash the image using sysupgrade -f, however, source links were provided to his Build Info page, where it explained why this was required.
    • Now that source links exist due to @hnyman's post above, this info will be added back to the ToH under the correct section for it, Flashing Firmware: OpenWrt >> OEM.

It should be noted there is currently generic info in the ToH that applies to all devices, such as the steps for flashing firmware, and once someone has time to verify these steps exist in a non-ToH OpenWrt wiki or can be added to a more appropriate wiki, these pieces of generic info will be removed, with inter-wiki links left in their place. These generic pieces of info were placed in the ToH because either non-ToH wikis didn't exist on the old OpenWrt wiki site that covered them, or it was impossible to find them due to the discombobulated way the old Wiki was laid out, which made it quite difficult to navigate.
#14

As I understood, before the firmware I reported to run PuTTy, connect to the router 192.168.1.1
What to do after the connection? Step by step? Do I need to break all network connections on wifi and lan?

#15

Just change dir to /tmp, download the firmware from Linksys, (maybe verify it), then just run sysupgrade:

(you can calculate sha256sum manually (with “sha256sum”) after downloading, if you want to verify the download at the router. But you naturally need the original checksum from OEM or self-calculated at PC or somewhere.)

cd /tmp
wget link-to-stock-firmware
sha256sum /tmp/stock-firmware-filename
sysupgrade -F -n /tmp/stock-firmware-filename

e.g.

cd /tmp
wget  http://downloads.linksys.com/downloads/firmware/FW_WRT3200ACM_1.0.6.186168_prod.img
sysupgrade -F -n /tmp/FW_WRT3200ACM_1.0.6.186168_prod.img
How to reinstall original firmware Linksys WRT3200ACM
Back to stock firmware WRT3200ACM
#16

The whole problem is that flash firmware is from PuTTy, and not from the web interface?

#17

You can't set the "override image check" option in LuCI, so you need to use console with putty.
But otherwise there is nothing special (just the need to use -F option )

#18

Many thanks, I did it !!! Thank you, kind people.

#19

If you only flashed LEDE once, the stock firmware should still be on alternative partition. You can force-reboot to an alternative partition thru 3 failed boots, or thru Web UI if you install luci-app-advanced-reboot package.

#20

Can I explain step by step what I need to do?
The factory firmware already works