OpenWrt Firmware for Archer c6 v3.2

thanks for this comprehensive guide, i had internet access and was able to install luci n for now i've reverted back to stock firmware.

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Hi,
I am also facing the same issue with 5Ghz.
I choose country as default , even though the driver doesn't start.
I also tried after flash, in that case also 5Ghz didn't start.
I don't know how to tshoot this in hardware level.
Please help.

Hi guys,
First of all, thank you for this thread. Lot of useful information on here regarding the TP-Link Archer c6 v3.2.

I'm using the snapshot OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r17178-373c08bcbb / LuCI Master git-21.196.22411-7d9ab8d and I seem to be having a problem with connecting to the WAN.

My ISP requires me to have a static public IP. I'm able to configure a static IP for the WAN, but when I try to connect to the internet, I'm unable to.

There is a MAC address restriction, so when I'm switching routers (from my current router to the TP-Link having OpenWRT) I'm on the phone with the ISP and they're resetting the MAC address restriction so the new router can connect.

I want to point out that before installing OpenWRT, when using the stock firmware, I was able to connect to the internet without any problems.

Any thoughts?

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A post was split to a new topic: Wifi performance Archer C7 v4 vs. Archer C6 v3.2

Have you actually tried and can confirm this works? I mean, the stock firmware image normally cannot be flashed directly in OpenWRT without firstly stripping bootloader (with the risk of bricking the router requiring TFTP or a recovery mode to restore it).

I am asking since I've tried to enter the recovery mode by cycling power four times (see below from A6 v3) but it did not work.

I am OK running OpenWRT for now but I would like to know how to revert to stock firmware just in case.

Recovery

Archer A6 V3 has recovery page activated if SPI booting from flash fails.
Recovery page can be activated by powercycling the router four times

https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=commit;h=d22fb7f4fd833c420bc2ab34384862da0a6688b5

OK, answering my own post... :roll_eyes:

I previously successfully reverted a RE200 v2 from OpenWRT to stock firmware using the tplink-safeloader utility as documented in the RE200 wiki here.

So I checked the tplink-safeloader source code and it seems that A6/C6 v3 are supported:

(...)
/** Firmware layout for the Archer C6 v3 */
(...)
/** Firmware layout for the Archer A6 v3  */
(...)

So I just took the stock firmware a6c6_v3-up-ver1-0-10-P1[20210513-rel63256]_2021-05-13_17.34.01.bin and executed the following command:

./build_dir/host/firmware-utils/bin/tplink-safeloader -z a6c6_v3-up-ver1-0-10-P1[20210513-rel63256]_2021-05-13_17.34.01.bin -o a6c6_v3_sysupgrade_factory_revert.bin

And now I have a a6c6_v3_sysupgrade_factory_revert.bin file that can potentially be flashed via OpenWRT sysupgrade to revert both A6/C6 v3 back to the stock firmware if needed (sysupgrade a6c6_v3_sysupgrade_factory_revert.bin -F).

I HAVE NOT TESTED IT yet since I do not have a UART/serial console connection to activate TFTP recovery in case things go wrong.

Anyway, if anyone wants to try (with the risk of bricking your device and needing a UART/serial console to recover) here is the revert .bin file in my OneDrive that could be flashed via OpenWRT (forced) to revert back to the stock firmware:

a6c6_v3_sysupgrade_factory_revert.bin
Size: 16121856 bytes
SHA256: 9D6F0AB90E04601C4150C320E9FC8A9642F26327E87104504DC6531CF02E2713

BTW, if anyway manages to activate the Archer C6/A6 recovery mode without a serial console please share.

Thanks!

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I flashed the stock firmware taken from TP-Link website using OpenWrt. Which soft bricked my router and turned on the recovery web page and from there i was successfully able to flash the stock firmware.

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Wondering how to get the Stable release instead of the Snapshot.
I've been using Snapshot for about a month but there are issues.
Can I just use the A6 V3 binary from release or do I need to patch and rebuild ?
I'm guessing the lazy option is to wait for 21.02.1 however that can be another 6 months.

Unfortunately the Archer C6 v3.2 has not been commited to the 21.02 branch yet. I just confirmed that it is not available in the "make menuconfig" in the 21.02 branch.

Therefore for now using Snapshot builds is the only option.

However I am not sure about installing the OpenWRT build of Archer A6 v3 build on the C6 v3.2. I have never tried, but since the stock firmware for the A6v3 and the C6v3.2 are exactly the same, I believe here is a chance it should work with OpenWRT as well (someone has to test it! :slight_smile: )

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[Openwrt newbie here]

Hi!

I used your stripped file to revert my device to default (using sysupgrade ...) and it worked! (In fact it preserved my old configuration).

I tried to use openwrt-ramips-mt7621-tplink_archer-c6-v3-squashfs-factory.bin , install the sysupgrade and then luci but i wasn't able to login, so i returned to stock. Anyone have accomplished it?

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Thank you for confirming that the stripped stock image allowed you to revert the Archer C6 v3 back to the stock firmware!

Upon the first OpenWRT install, the default logon is "root" with a blank password. If you are unable to login this way, you may try to perform an OpenWRT factory reset.

To do so, after the device is powered on and you are able to see the OpenWRT logon screen, press and hold the "Reset" button in the device for at least then seconds and release it. This should clear all OpenWRT settings and remove any previous password. More details in the OpenWRT wiki here.

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Oh, i did that, however the Luci interface didn´t show (my browser show that server sent an empty response). I followed the instructions in: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/luci/luci.essentials

I made a little bit of research and found that installing the package luci-ssl-nginx (instead of all others) allowed me to see the GUI but it didn't allow me to gain access due ¿main? faile damaged of XHR request timeout.

Just installing LuCI and accessing via http (not https) should work.

It might be an issue with the recent Snapshot builds (see SNAPSHOT: LuCI will not launch r17571 and r17581 on WRT1900ACv1)

I think we will need to build a stable release binary as snapshots are unpredictable.

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Yeah, was that... i tried yesterday with new snapshot and it worked since then.

5Ghz sometimes refuses to work, but i supose beacause ...well,snapshot.

Is any developer still working on adding this router to the 21.02 head to be included in a future 21.02.1 stable release?

Since the updated m76 drivers broke Wifi 5Ghz on this device and others devices (see here), it would be good to have it on an stable branch just as A6 v3 and C6U are already in 21.02.0 stable release.

BTW, I just realized that there are no internal pictures of this device on the web, so here you go:






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Hey All,

I installed the latest snapshot and I cannot turn on wifi after that.
Even did the setup using uci

@dsouza I noticed the C6 V3 didn't make to the latest stable release of today.
Do you know if there is differences between C6 an A6 ? I heard A6 being Amazon exclusive clone of the C6. Are you aware of any differences ?

As far as I know they are the same device. I believe that flashing OpenWRT A6 v3 firmware on the C6 v3 could work, but I would not recommend it unless if you have an UART and skills to open the device and recover it via serial console (since it may brick your router).

Anyway, I am willing to try this during the weekend... :slight_smile:

I just flashed 21.02.1 Archer A6 v3 image on an Archer C6 v3.2 device and as expected it is working.

I had to "force" a sysupgrade from OpenWRT snapshot since it detected it was a different device. But the upgrade went OK and everything is working fine (obviously it started showing "TP-Link Archer A6 v3" on the status page.

Notice however that I (forced) flashed from OpenWRT snapshot C6v3 to OpenWRT 21.02.1 A6v3 using squashfs-sysupgrade image and I can confirm this works fine. However if you are flashing from stock firmware I cannot say it would work applying the A6 v3 squashfs-factory on a C6 v3.2 device. I think it would work but I have not tested.

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