Hello.
I've recently tried to install LEDE in one of this A5-V11 devices using the method described in this page of the openwrt wiki -> https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/unbranded/a5-v11, but the installation appeared to have been failed and now the device do not boot correctly and its only sign of life appears to be the constant blinking of one of its leds (the blue one).
My device is the one that have 32MB of RAM and came stock with the weird English (QualComm) Factory Firmware.
I've followed the instructions of the page linked above accordingly and the whole process occurred as expected, with the exception that I had to telnet to 192.168.169.1 instead of 192.168.100.1.
Here it is the "output" of my console:
x@y:~$ telnet 192.168.169.1
Trying 192.168.169.1...
Connected to 192.168.169.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
ZLMnet login: admin
Password:
BusyBox v1.12.1 (2012-08-27 10:10:44 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
# mount /dev/sda /mnt
# ls /mnt/
uboot_usb_256_03.img firmware.bin
# mtd_write write /mnt/uboot_usb_256_03.img Bootloader
Unlocking Bootloader ...
Writing from /mnt/uboot_usb_256_03.img to Bootloader ... [w]
# mtd_write write /mnt/firmware.bin Kernel
Unlocking Kernel ...
Writing from /mnt/firmware.bin to Kernel ... [w]
# reboot
# Connection closed by foreign host.
As you could see, the process appeared to have succeeded, but as soon as I rebooted the device it starts to blink its blue light and stopped responding. Now, every time I give power to the A5-V11 it very briefly flash its both leds (the red and the blue) and then starts to blink the blue light an remains this way...
I cannot connect to the device via ethernet using my computer (my computer sees and "ethernet device" but fails to connect to it) and when trying to connect to it via a router, it fails to get a DHCP lease.
One more thing is that the reset button in this unit is very hard to press, but its pressing/holding appears to have no effect in the device its current situation...
I know this is kinda of a generic device and its characteristics and behaviors varies between units, but I would love if anyone could help me diagnose the problem with this little A5-V11, in the hope to save this unit and to "build a documentation/reference" of the problem to anyone who may have it in the future.
So, to further diagnose the aforementioned problem I solder some wires to the solder pads close to the ethernet jack of the device to gain serial access using an serial to USB adapter (as described here). But when trying to connect to the device using screen (screen /dev/ttyUSB0 57600 ) all I got was a stream of the letter "D" that appears every time and in sync with the blue led blinks. Since no U-Boot prompt appeared and I could not type any command I tried to quit screen with Ctrl+C and then the the U-Boot appears to reset and give me some messages. This is the whole thing as appeared in my terminal:
x@y:~# screen /dev/ttyUSB0 57600
D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D
Abort
SYSTEM RESET!!!
U-Boot 1.1.3 Rev 0.3 by WErt(WErt) 4PDA (May 19 2016 - 14:41:04)
Board: Ralink APSoC DRAM: 32 MB
******************************
Software System Reset Occurred
******************************
Ralink SPI flash driver, SPI clock: 15MHz
spi device id: ef 40 16 0 0 (40160000)
find flash: W25Q32BV
.*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment
============================================
Ralink U-Boot Version: 5.0.0.5
--------------------------------------------
ASIC 5350_MP (Port5<->None)
DRAM_CONF_FROM: Boot-Strapping
DRAM_TYPE: SDRAM
DRAM_SIZE: 256 Mbits
DRAM_WIDTH: 16 bits
DRAM_TOTAL_WIDTH: 16 bits
TOTAL_MEMORY_SIZE: 32 MBytes
Flash component: SPI Flash
Date:May 19 2016 Time:14:41:04
============================================
icache: sets:256, ways:4, linesz:32, total:32768
dcache: sets:128, ways:4, linesz:32, total:16384
#### The CPU freq = 360 MHZ ####
estimate memory size = 32 Mbytes
Please choose the operation:
0: Load system code then write to Flash via Serial.
1: Load system code to SDRAM via TFTP.
2: Load system code then write to Flash via TFTP.
3: Boot system code via Flash (default).
4: Enter boot command line interface.
5: Load system code then write to Flash via USB Storage.
6: Load U-Boot code then write to Flash via USB Storage.
7: Load U-Boot code then write to Flash via Serial.
8: Load U-Boot code to SDRAM via TFTP.
9: Load U-Boot code then write to Flash via TFTP. 0 .
3: System Boot system code via Flash.
## Checking image at bc050000 ...
.Bad Magic Number,52334732
## Enter to Rescue Mode (image error) ##
NetTxPacket = 0x81FB4600
KSEG1ADDR(NetTxPacket) = 0xA1FB4600
NetLoop,call eth_halt !
NetLoop,call eth_init !
Trying eth2
ETH_STATE_ACTIVE!!
Our IP address is:(192.168.1.1)
D D D D D D D D D D D
I would like to try this "Load system code then write to Flash via TFTP" method as described here and here to try to reflash the firmware or even to hardware reset it via software, as described here, but since I haven't been given no prompt to work with, I cannot type any command or select any option...
According to the U-Boot message it appears to me that the default "Boot system code via Flash" is automatic selected and that the system failed to load do to some kind of corruption (.Bad Magic Number,52334732); then it enters in this "Rescue mode" and then returns to the stream of "D's". Every thing happens in a fraction of a second.
This is what I could make sense of, but I'm having a bad time to understand the whole situation here and what I could do to diagnose and revert the problem. Can anyone help me!?
Not sure if you solved the issue, but I am exactly where you are (.Bad Magic Number,52334732). However to be able to choose one of the 10 operations listed in the U-boot, you have to be very very quick!
As soon as you see that menu, you press the number corresponding to the option you want. You can copy uboot.bin and firmware.bin to a USB drive and choose option 5. The filenames have to be exactly that.
Oh man , I just got mine working, I needed to use CC sysupgrade not the openwrt factory image. Don't understand why, but now my previousely bricked A5-V11 is fulling running OpenWRT !
Summary
0: Load system code then write to Flash via Serial.
1: Load system code to SDRAM via TFTP.
2: Load system code then write to Flash via TFTP.
3: Boot system code via Flash (default).
4: Enter boot command line interface.
5: Load system code then write to Flash via USB Storage.
6: Load U-Boot code then write to Flash via USB Storage.
7: Load U-Boot code then write to Flash via Serial.
8: Load U-Boot code to SDRAM via TFTP.
9: Load U-Boot code then write to Flash via TFTP. 0
.
3: System Boot system code via Flash.
## Checking image at bc050000 ...
. Image Name: MIPS OpenWrt Linux-3.18.20
Image Type: MIPS Linux Kernel Image (lzma compressed)
Data Size: 1051131 Bytes = 1 MB
Load Address: 80000000
Entry Point: 80000000
................. Verifying Checksum ... OK
Uncompressing Kernel Image ... OK
No initrd
## Transferring control to Linux (at address 80000000) ...
## Giving linux memsize in MB, 16
Starting kernel ...
[ 0.000000] Linux version 3.18.20 (buildbot@builder1) (gcc version 4.8.3 (OpenWrt/Linaro GCC 4.8-2014.04 r46450) ) #1 Fri Sep 4 19:34:21 CEST 2015
[ 0.000000] SoC Type: Ralink RT5350 id:1 rev:3
[ 0.000000] bootconsole [early0] enabled
[ 0.000000] CPU0 revision is: 0001964c (MIPS 24KEc)
[ 0.000000] MIPS: machine is A5-V11
No, I did not solved the issue. Actually the device is hopelessly sitting in a shelf collecting dust I even stop looking at this thread in hope for an answer, the reason why I took so long to reply to your post...
Thank you very much for your insight! I will try your recommendations as soon as possible.
no worries! The instructions for a usual uboot/openwrt img upload are here. YMMV depending on the memory in that small unit so your instructions above on which firmware to choose will vary.
My post was just to say that it is possible to get into the uboot menu using serial conn, it does NOT matter what uboot/firmware u have on the USB key, u will always get a fallback boot menu.
Yes the filenames have to be exactly what I posted earlier, at least on mine, as it complained it cant find uboot.bin or firmware.bin when I choose another name.
Now for the serial intervention, it is really really hard and fast. But once you boot it into whatever state, press and hold the tiny reset button as u are monitoring the serial console, u should see the boot menu. Then on next try, choose the option u need but u need to be darn quick, i'd say 100ms from when the message FACTORY RESET.
Now i wanted to video this for you, but i soldered inside that unit a serial conn so I use only one micro USB and now I can't interrupt the uboot menu, but serial console works.
\o/ It totally worked! I will change the name of the thread to signalize it has been solved and make a post to document the process for anyone who happens to stumble upon this thread...
This post is meant to document the process to recover the A5-V11 device from the blue flashing LED state:
The problem/situation
0a. The device do not boot and, instead, keeps flashing its blue led in a loop; 0b. You hooked up the serial interface by soldering some wires (or something like that) directly to the pads on the side of the ethernet jack (as described here) and used a serial to USB adapter to access the device using something like screen (screen /dev/ttyUSB0 57600); 0c. You discovered that when connecting with serial all you got is a stream of the letter "D" that appears every time and in sync with the blue led blinks.
The solution (this probably isn't the only solution, but the one that worked for me and for @aboulfad, who pointed to this method)
The process is to use a uboot option to "reflash" uboot and the firmware to your device from an USB flash drive.
What you will need:
A USB flash drive formatted as FAT;
A uboot image for your device (Can be obtained here -> 256 in file name means 32M RAM, 128 means 16M RAM. Act accordingly);
A sysupgrade bin off openwrt for your device (I used this one);
A serial conection (obtained as described above);
A computer with screen or something to use the serial connection
1. Download the uboot and the sysupgrade for your device and rename the files to uboot.img and firmware.bin, respectively (it appears that renaming the uboot to uboot.bin instead may be necessary); 2. Transfer the files to the USB flash drive and connect it to the USB port of the A5-V11; 3. Use screen or other program to access your serial connection (eg.: screen /dev/ttyUSB0 57600); 4. Now thats the trick part: 4a. By pressing Ctrl+c or the hardware reset button you will briefly be presented with a uboot menu with some options, but the "Boot system code via Flash (default)" one (in my case the number 3) will be selected automatically by default and you will be unable to boot due to a "Bad Magic Number" (that is the whole reason of the problem); 4b. To bypass this you have to locate the option "Load system code then write to Flash via USB Storage" and press the correspondent number key (in my case 5) right after you see a "SYSTEM RESET!!!" message. The timing have to be precise, tho, and the key must be pressed a single time, otherwise the default option will be selected. If you don't succeed in the first attempts, keep trying (I had to do this 17 times to get it just right); 4c. The selection of this option will lead to a confirmation prompt asking if you really want to select that option. Press "y" or "Y" and the option will begin to execute. Note: any other key pressed in this moment will abort the execution of this option and the default one will be executed instead, so don't repeatedly press the correspondent numeric key ; 4d. When executing, the program will scan for your flash drive and when founded will flash the correspondent files to its correspondent partitions. Note: the process can be long and appear to hang, but be patient and wait until it finishes; 4e. If everything occurs as expected your device will reboot automatically in the new firmware =D
I made this post to document the solution process to help anyone that stumble upon this thread. If I've missed anything please tell me and I will edit the post...
I will also tried to link this post in the A5-V11 device page in the openwrt wiki...
Since some time ago they started to flash that S*****tty Qualcom software with locked bootloader.
When I tried to upload OpenWrt it always returned to Qualcomm! It was only pretending to make an upgrade..
But they left in bootloader something forgotten: in spite of the fact they totally blocked LAN for upgrades they left possibility to upgrade over serial line working!! So first I upload new loader (good one) and the rest is not a problem at al....
I use tftp over LAN to upload OpenWrt image after a good bootloader is flashed over serial line
That is my experience. I fought with chineese when ordering these A5V11 but it seems they all have it from one manufacturer. I believe we should boycott this product with Qualcomm software!! Let they provide again good old factory version!!
To find the serial driver name on Mac or any *Nix, one can list the /dev dir before and after plugging the USB serial adapter, save each to a different file name, then do a diff of the two files. On the Mac and for my USB adapter, it was called as follows:
, I just got mine working, I needed to use CC sysupgrade not the openwrt factory image. Don't understand why, but now my previousely bricked A5-V11 is fulling running OpenWRT !
I even stop looking at this thread in hope for an answer, the reason why I took so long to reply to your post...
;