Oh cr-p, I messed up. How to recover?

Went to install 24.10.0 on a Linksys E8450 today. I upgraded its firmware as soon as I set it up. Per the docs, I first uploaded openwrt-24.10.0-mediatek-mt7622-linksys_e8450-ubi-initramfs-recovery-installer_signed.itb. It upgraded fine, the router rebooted, and I was able to access the web recovery interface.

That's where I messed up. I should have uploaded openwrt-24.10.0-mediatek-mt7622-linksys_e8450-ubi-squashfs-sysupgrade.itb, but uploaded a different upgrade file instead. I didn't realize this, and after the do-no-disturb sign came up, I went to lunch.

Came back to it two hours later, still had the do-no-disturb notice up. After a bit, I decided the browser was wrong, killed the page, then rebooted the router.

It came up, the DHCP server worked, I can access the root account via ssh and ping out to the net; however, I cannot find the app that starts the web interface; apk segfaults when I try to use it; and there is no ftp or scp/sftp server installed, so I cannot upload anything to try a CLI sysupgrade. I put the files on a USB drive thinking the router would recognize the port, but no dice (certainly nothing nice like an automount). I looked in /dev on the router, but there are no sdx devices and I am not certain how to try mounting it (I made a directory in /tmp to hold the files).

If I can figure out how to mount the USB drive, I can get the OpenWRT and Linksys files on there and try to recover via sysupgrade.

If anyone has advice on how to remedy this, I would be grateful Thank you.

What specific file did you install? APK is not used on 24.10, so its sounds like you may have installed a snapshot??

ubus call system board

Don't need one, it's built in, as long as you force an scp transfer.

If you hook it up with internet access, you can always wget the sysupgrade image.

Mark this solved - I was able to use ssh cat to get the correct file up there and run sysupgrade. Phew.

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