Hey guys, I've been trying to update my Openwrt router (TP Link Archer A7 V5) and I had to follow the instructions for TFTP recovery as my luci gui and ssh stopped working, now my router won't even boot anymore., it just turns on for a second and then just restarts. what can I do now?
The only really economically reasonable recovery procedure would be to keep trying with push-button tftp:
The next escalation step would be trying to get serial console access to the bootloader and invoking tftp && booting from there, which requires a 3.3 volts USB2serial adapter (~5 USD/ EUR with local/ national shipping), what quickly makes it less economically viable are cables, pins and soldering equipment (if you have that, great - you might also get along without, but that is more tricky; buying it quickly goes into the 20-40 USD/ EUR range, so more than a working/ used a7/ c7).
If all fails, spi-nor flashing would be next (this hard-depends on soldering equipment, a soic8 clamp and a spi-nor flasher like the ch341a), but you still have to hope that the wireless calibration data at the end of the flash survived - if it didn't, say bye to its wireless capabilities (backups, backups, backups).
A RaspberryPi may stand-in as serial console and spi-nor flasher (soic8 clamp, cables and soldering equipment still needed).
Follow information for the archer c7 for further details, they aren't quite identical (in terms of flash partitioning and OEM firmware), but can still provide guidance.
Do check your local used markets for used devices first, so you get a feel for the upper end of economic viability for your efforts and keep in mind that failure (especially in regards to its wireless capabilities) is an imminent danger.
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Oh boy! I managed to get it working! I had to switch to a Windows computer and used tftpd64 for the server and I flashed it back to it's factory image! Im gonna try to put OpenWRT back on it.. what firmware image do I need to convert a factory install into OpenWRT?
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I managed to get the router back on after following the TFTP flashing guide, I had to use the TFTPD64 tool on Windows (for some reason dnsmasq on Linux wasn't working right). I first flashed the OEM firmware just to get it back to its factory state, then I finally reflashed openWRT with the same method (oddly the TPLink firmware wasn't letting me flash Openwrt)
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