Restoring TP-Link MR200 v5.3 from OpenWRT to Stock Firmware

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi everyone,
I just installed OpenWRT on my TP-Link MR200 v5.3, but I’m running into multiple issues:

  • 5GHz Wi-Fi isn’t working.
  • 2.4GHz Wi-Fi is unstable.

This router is only temporary for now, as I’m waiting for Huawei CPE 5 to arrive. I’d like to restore it back to the stock TP-Link firmware to get it stable again.

Can anyone guide me through the process?

What I know is that I can’t just push the original firmware file over TFTP because the file is too big.
Also, I’m running Microslop Windows.

Thanks in advance!

2

Just place OEM firrmware on tftp server, preferably one you had before OpenWrt.

3

Stock probably contains LTE modem firmware too, that's why OP said it's too big.

4

Thank you for all your feedback hahaha just kidding. Can not help much with tftp server pushing files even slopmashine promised it.

5

I have a beta firmware file that’s 8MB.(I got it from a previous issue with that router from tp link officially) When I install it, the router just keeps blinking afterward. I think that means it’s waiting for the full stock firmware to be installed, but I don’t know how to flash the full firmware because the file is too large to push over TFTP.
Someone said I should be able to upload the full firmware through the web interface after installing that 8mb firmware, but when I try to access the web interface, nothing loads.

6

You could binwalk your file and oem file and estimate the offset and size you have to take from huge fw file. Highlighted parts that are certainly part of OEM FW

DECIMAL       HEXADECIMAL     DESCRIPTION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
48399         0xBD0F          JBOOT SCH2 kernel header, compression type: none, Entry Point: 0x84000816, image size: 10127 bytes, data CRC: 0x9901E010, Data Address: 0x4500048F, rootfs offset: 0x200228E, rootfs size: 2734686244 bytes, rootfs CRC: 0x62000390, header CRC: 0x99006C14, header size: 5007 bytes, cmd line length: 0 bytes
59425         0xE821          JBOOT STAG header, image id: 4, timestamp 0x24100000, image size: 50365208 bytes, image JBOOT checksum: 0x8000, header JBOOT checksum: 0x554
72617         0x11BA9         JBOOT STAG header, image id: 6, timestamp 0xE200C910, image size: 2148811007 bytes, image JBOOT checksum: 0x610, header JBOOT checksum: 0x2100
+ 76596         0x12B34         U-Boot version string, "U-Boot 1.1.3 (Jun 25 2023 - 17:41:24)"
+ 132096        0x20400         uImage header, header size: 64 bytes, header CRC: 0xFBDDC080, - created: 2023-06-25 09:46:15, image size: 1944658 bytes, Data Address: 0x81001000, Entry Point: 0x813CFD00, data CRC: 0x8E9086E1, OS: Linux, CPU: MIPS, image type: OS Kernel Image, compression type: lzma, image name: "Linux Kernel Image"
+ 132160        0x20440         LZMA compressed data, properties: 0x5D, dictionary size: 33554432 bytes, uncompressed size: 5606272 bytes
+ 2228736       0x220200        Squashfs filesystem, little endian, version 4.0, compression:xz, size: 9339616 bytes, 694 inodes, blocksize: 131072 bytes, created: 2023-06-25 10:04:42
16515584      0xFC0200        Zip archive data, at least v1.0 to extract, name: bin/
16515646      0xFC023E        Zip archive data, at least v1.0 to extract, name: lib/
16515708      0xFC027C        Zip archive data, at least v2.0 to extract, compressed size: 26745, uncompressed size: 230480, name: lib/NetIspInfo.ini
16542765      0xFC6C2D        End of Zip archive, footer length: 22
16542787      0xFC6C43        gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: 2022-08-15 09:21:43
20760490      0x13CC7AA       MySQL ISAM compressed data file Version 10
24582291      0x1771893       MySQL MISAM index file Version 11
27184614      0x19ECDE6       JBOOT SCH2 kernel header, compression type: jz, Entry Point: 0x31B9D204, image size: 2569423155 bytes, data CRC: 0x4210084, Data Address: 0x9024848, rootfs offset: 0x37264F4C, rootfs size: 1688023048 bytes, rootfs CRC: 0x6649992, header CRC: 0x205CC6E6, header size: 3265 bytes, cmd line length: 17668 bytes
33132856      0x1F99138       JBOOT STAG header, image id: 9, timestamp 0x96552C40, image size: 3858251273 bytes, image JBOOT checksum: 0xCD04, header JBOOT checksum: 0xF8B0
43223284      0x29388F4       ESP Image (ESP32): segment count: 12, flash mode: QUIO, flash speed: 40MHz, flash size: 1MB, entry address: 0x0, hash: none
7

what is that lol, the only think i know is tftpd64

8

You will need some linux virtual machine to run binwalk tool on both images and chop out "short file" bits out of "big file"

9

welp, I guess I have to install Linux now lol. Or maybe just use WSL, but I don’t know.. Microslop has been giving me headaches these days, so a new OS it is! I’ll try Fedora… I hope it actually boots this time, unlike my last install (I think I deleted the kernel last time, so that’s probably why it wasn’t even booting lol)

10

ubuntu virtual machine like virtualbox is totally normal linux, for wsl you have to find linux filesystem, not mapped windows directory to compile anything.