[Solved] TL-WPA8630P Lede does not install

It works. So, I have an 17.01.4 image that can be flashed from an out-of-the-box TL-WPA8630, tested with 1.0.4 native firmware to start from.

That is really nice!!!

For everyone who wants to use it for TL-WPA8630 (without the P):
lede-17.01.4-ar71xx-generic-tl-wpa8630-squashfs-initial.bin

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What is different on the image linked by you compared to the officially available 17.01.4 download?

In short, the difference is that you can flash it from the native GUI whereas this does not work with the official images.

In long, there are three more headers and some size constraints on the image, that seem to be strictly checked by the native firmware:
The fragment sizes need to be exactly the flash partition sizes, as pointed out in one additional upfront tplink1.1 header (easy). But there is two more headers, 36 or 40 bytes with some length fields and an md5 checksum, plus another 20 bytes header (length+checksum), where I didn't manage to find the seed or the extent of checksummed data yet for these two; ie I'm using a tool from the tp-link sdk for creating these.

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image

Unfortunately I receive an error while trying to upgrade. The file extention is *.sit, rename to *.bin does not help.

Try a shorter file name, like factory.bin

Renamed tot factory.bin

image

Looks like the next step is a serial flash.

I did it on a WPA8630 without the P, the model with external antennas and no power socket.
Just tried it on WPA8630P V1 and it fails. Will have a look at it, where the difference is in the image.

The TL-WPA8630P has a hardware ID of 0x86310001 instead of 0x86300001 ... that's why it does not flash. Give me 10 minutes ...

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Ok, this is the image for the TL-WPA8630P V1: http://www.netadair.de/lede/lede-17.01.4-ar71xx-generic-tl-wpa8630pv1-squashfs-initial.bin

BTW there is indeed a 64 character limit on the file name :slight_smile:

The TL-WPA8630P V2 is yet another story, but actually I don't have one to test.

Thanks :wink:

I get an 404 error. Not anymore. Link works.

Copy&paste bug, sorry... I've amended the link.

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Please make sure to file a pull request to get the additional hardware ID supported in LEDE.

I will try the image and post my findings.

Image works!!! For v1

Has anyone had any luck recovering one of these, I seem to have bricked mine :sob:

So I managed to resolve my own problem in the end, using serial recovery. Ones you open up the device, it effectively splits n to two boards, the serial connector is in the bottom right of the top board (i.e. the half of the unit that has the antenna), pinout is exactly the same as the archer c7, i.e. from top to bottom, tx, rx, ground.

From the uboot loader, I was able to pull the factory image and flash, as per the below output

Hopefully it may be of use to other people...

U-Boot 1.1.4--LSDK-10.2-00082-4 (Jun 13 2016 - 15:20:15)

ap152 - Dragonfly 1.0

DRAM:  128 MB
Top of RAM usable for U-Boot at: 88000000
Reserving 134k for U-Boot at: 87fdc000
Reserving 192k for malloc() at: 87fac000
Reserving 44 Bytes for Board Info at: 87fabfd4
Reserving 36 Bytes for Global Data at: 87fabfb0
Reserving 128k for boot params() at: 87f8bfb0
Stack Pointer at: 87f8bf98
Now running in RAM - U-Boot at: 87fdc000
Flash Manuf Id 0xef, DeviceId0 0x40, DeviceId1 0x17
flash size 8MB, sector count = 128
Flash:  8 MB
Using default environment

In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   ath_gmac_enet_initialize...
No valid address in Flash. Using fixed address
ath_gmac_enet_initialize: reset mask:c02200
athr_mgmt_init ::done
Dragonfly  ----> S17 PHY *
athrs17_reg_init: complete
SGMII in forced mode
athr_gmac_sgmii_setup SGMII done
: cfg1 0x80000000 cfg2 0x7114
eth0: 00:03:7f:09:0b:ad
eth0 up
eth0
Setting 0x181162c0 to 0x60c02100
Autobooting in 1 seconds
dragonfly> tftpboot  0x80000000 factory.bin
Trying eth0
dup 1 speed 1000
Using eth0 device
TFTP from server 192.168.1.10; our IP address is 192.168.1.1
Filename 'factory.bin'.
Load address: 0x80000000
Loading: #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         ############################
done
Bytes transferred = 8126464 (7c0000 hex)
dragonfly> erase 0x9f010000 +7c0000
Erasing flash...
First 0x1 last 0x7c sector size 0x10000
 124
Erased 124 sectors
dragonfly> cp.b 0x0x80000000 0x9f010000 0x7c0000
Copy to Flash... write addr: 9f010000
done
dragonfly> reset
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