Recovery Mode on TP-Link Archer C7 v5 (EU)

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Hello,

I accidentally corrupted my firmware and I cannot get to recovery mode. After holding the reset button, WPS button lights up for about 10-15 seconds (connected port doesn't though) and then the router resets (WPS light turns off and power light blinks). In my macOS settings i can see that ethernet is connected but I cannot upload the new firmware using tftp

Similar issue: Recovery Mode on TP-Link Archer C7 v5 (EU) - #9 by novalex

Thanks for any help :frowning:

2

The Archer should get the file from the TFTP server. There is no active 'upload'. Because this is hardcoded, you need to make sure you set the right IP address, and provide the file in the exact location and filename. This is in the wiki pages.

3

I followed instructions from https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer_c7#if_flashing_via_tftp_fails and sadly I'm still stuck at the same place :(. Part " Let me explain what happened and how I was mislead by lights on the first place. When this settings in TFTP64 program were not set as described above (set as default). The file was downloaded to the router. But the file transfer took 1-2 sec (definitely quicker). After transfer, the power light blinked ONLY ONCE and stayed lit. Thus indicating - the router rejected BIN file, due to download errors (Presumably, I didn't have a USB console to confirm this)" Matches my problem exactly but I still cannot get it right

4

If all fails, start at the beginning:

You set it up exactly as stated here:
Having trouble downloading bin file via TFTP on Archer c7 v5 (EU) - read this

You downloaded this file:
https://archive.openwrt.org/releases/22.03.5/targets/ath79/generic/openwrt-22.03.5-ath79-generic-tplink_archer-c7-v5-squashfs-factory.bin

then checked the sha256 checksum and renamed it to: ArcherC7v5_tp_recovery.bin

and that did not work?

Did you try it with an original firmware ?

1 Like
5

I’ve tried both of them :frowning:

6

I think you have to set up a serial connection to see whats going on.

But you could try this:
arp -s 192.168.0.86 router's bootloader MAC address

From: https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer_c7

### ARP issues during tftp recovery

Some versions of the Archer C7v5 (US) firmware (others might also be affected) do not reply to ARP properly, and the tftp fails because of that.

To see if that's what's happening, have “tcpdump -i -nv -e” running and try the recovery procedure. If there are no replies to your computer asking for “who-has 192.168.0.86” (or 192.168.1.86), that's your problem.

To work around it, look at the source MAC for the who-has 192.168.0.66 message the router sent (and your computer replied), and add it manually to the arp table: arp -s 192.168.0.86 router's bootloader MAC address.