With the 43260 flashed, I can see TFTP request evey time I turn the Router with thew WPS button pressed. It takes about 7 seconds since I power it up to see the TFTP request. I tried several times and it worked 100% of the times.
On the other hand, with the 61368 flashed, I could not see a TFTP request neither an ARP request for any IP like 192.168.0.66 or 86.
I tried several times, with the same result.
I thought maybe the problem was that Windows usually takes some seconds to detect the LAN as UP, so I connected a Switch between the Router and my Laptop. Now, Windows has the Ethernet port UP all the time. I made the same test, with the WPS button pressed, with the WiFi On/Off button pressed and even with both buttons pressed, with no success.
So, my conclusion is that TP-Link took out the TFTP option on this release.
Anyway, this seems strange, as the behavior of the WPS Led when powering up with the WPS button is the same with both firmwares. It blinks for a couple of seconds and then stays on.
Although the LEDE build from @DjiPi would probably flash from WEB GUI of both stock firmwares, I will try it with 43260 flashed, so I can go back to stock if needed using TFTP.
My recommendation: DO NOT FLASH LEDE TROUGH WEB IF TFTP IS NOT WORKING WITH INSTALLED STOCK FIRMWARE.
Anyway, next step: Flash LEDE (@DjiPi build), on TFTP from TP-Link 43260.
I would have a non-up-to-date U-Boot partition, but I would have the possibility to go back to Stock.
I assume that you also fixed your static IP to 192.168.0.66 and did not use DHCP client ?
Thank you for the info; that special_id is already built into LEDE's safeloader module so you should be able to make it work straight from the actual release branch.
Good News!
LEDE flashed and working!
I now have to check if everything works well. At the moment, I only see 2.4 GHz WiFi.
I'm not sure if there's support for 5 GHz on this router.
By the way, flashing stock firmware again using TFTP works.
So I confirm it is possible on Archer C5 v2 US version to flash LEDE through WEB GUI of Stock image with your build and it's possible to go back from LEDE to Stock using TFTP, AS LONG AS the last Stock image used had TFTP support.
My recommendation again, just in case:
DO NOT FLASH LEDE TROUGH WEB IF TFTP IS NOT WORKING WITH INSTALLED STOCK FIRMWARE.
Usually the MAC are taken from the ART partition, but I can't answer that particular question because I don't know. As a workaround there is always the possibility to specify the MAC address you want in the configuration file.
Yesterday I flashed my C5 v2 (EU Version) directly from the stock firmware to LEDE (17.01.2) and I had no problems.
After that, I updated again to the lastest version found here http://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/lede/snapshots/targets/bcm53xx/generic/ and I realized the kernel was version 4.9 and not 4.4 like 17.01.02.
The router is working fine, except for the Wifi (also know), maybe one day will work fine too.
Thanks again to all the people is making LEDE posible and going on.
I've checked the MAC address and it's different from the MAC address written in the label of my device.
Actually I have the same MAC address for the LAN, WAN and WLAN interfaces, it's really strange!!!
On my everyday router Archer C7 v2 running LEDE indeed, the MAC addresses are different for each interface (as it must be).
I flashed one of your firmwares on my router tough now it only has the power light on and nothing else.
Router TP link Archer C5 V2 was EU version installed US version by mistake and tried CFW but now stuck on power led.
Wireshark does seem to have some communication but the router itself does not seem to work.
I can't seem to get the TFTP to work I have not tried a linux yet though this should not be the case as on my windows laptop the ip was set right and firewall off to prevent issues, though all TFTP clients seem to fail.
router is now bricked and I do not know what to do with it.
not sure as I never tried this first, though it does not seem to want to reach out to my TFTP server at all I tried 2 pc's now and no avail, the power light is on and the rest is off this stays this way as well the whole time. Though it does seem to respond to the FTPD method of using the Reset button though not downloading any files.
I hope this is not a total hardbrick of my router as I am prepared to get a usb to uart and fix it that way too though that is a little far-fetched I will do this if needed.
@guidoa discovered that TFTP was not working on some firmware revisions from TP-Link and therefore, we proposed as a preliminary step to ensure that TFTP was working well before any attempt at flashing LEDE to ease up the recovery process.
