Reviving a Google OnHub (TPLink TGR1900)

I suppose establishing the state of your devices would be the first thing to check.

How do you know that ethernet ports are active? (I suppose some lights turn on somewhere?)

Are you connecting the switch to the correct ethernet port for the OnHub device? Remember, there are two ports, and you want to use the "LAN" port. (This will allow OnHub to act as a DHCP server to your laptop.)

What are the network interface configurations and routes on your laptop? If your interfaces are down, and/or routes not configured correctly, your packets may not be going towards the router.

Have you tried connecting a known-good device to your switch and contacting that with your laptop instead? This will establish whether the laptop side of your setup is working.

Have you verified that the switch connection is correct? (Is there something hosted on the switch, that you could ping instead?)

How do you know that ethernet ports are active? (I suppose some lights turn on somewhere?)

Yeah lights are on.

Are you connecting the switch to the correct ethernet port for the OnHub device? Remember, there are two ports, and you want to use the "LAN" port. (This will allow OnHub to act as a DHCP server to your laptop.)

Yes. I double checked this.

What are the network interface configurations and routes on your laptop? If your interfaces are down, and/or routes not configured correctly, your packets may not be going towards the router.

I tried default automatic DHCP., which works fine connected to my peplink router.

Have you tried connecting a known-good device to your switch and contacting that with your laptop instead? This will establish whether the laptop side of your setup is working.

I connected the switch into my main switch and the laptop works fine.

Have you verified that the switch connection is correct? (Is there something hosted on the switch, that you could ping instead?)

If I just hook the laptop to the switch and my switch to my main switch then I can ping some of my other devices on my main network.

Did you wipe the drive fully before writing the image to it? I've had the same issue before where I couldn't get any connection. When you write the image to the USB drive with dd add 'bs=1M' to the command. This has helped me in the past.

I just tried that. Same results.

I get the rainbow lights, which I assume mean the USB image has loaded? Seems like I can get to this stage pretty easily.

I just can't seem to get an IP address on my wired laptop.

Quick question, I know the instructions say I do not need to do a factory reset, but would that even make a difference?

the lan interface in the <---> marked one
the other has a round kinda glob image that's internet
yes I would try the reset button on the usb
and the flash if you have installed openwrt b4
so a while after the red/green/blue leds show up
press the reset button

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Yeah I have the ethernet cabled plugged into the right spot. I have never installed openwrt on this, but I am going to give the reset a try. You never know.

I got it working! I guess in my case, the magic sauce was resetting the onhub to factory defaults. Once I did that, everything worked as it should following the instructions.

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I just successfully flashed my TP-LINK and wanted to chime in as I encountered.

I'm on Mac OS 14.1.2, MacBook Pro 2019 16"

At first I was getting the red/orange ring. I then tried the "ctrl+d" keyboard thing and the router would get stuck on a blinking purple ring.

I did some more researching and I found somewhere in this post someone mentioned using either "dd" or a program called Balena Etcher. Having tried "dd" a bunch of times and continuing to get to either the red/orange or to the blinking purple ring, I decided to give it a shot. I re-downloaded the image again and I also downloaded Balena Etcher. I put the image on my USB drive using Etcher and then went through the instructions again (without the keyboard), and that worked, I got the rainbow ring.

Not sure what etcher is doing right that "dd" isn't doing, I think maybe it has to do with getting the right "/etc/...." id. I maybe wasn't getting the right one? who knows. it works now so I'm done with this part. Now I just need to set things up for what I need it for.