Sounds like you have overwritten the art partition, so the Mac addresses have been deleted and there is no WiFi calibration data, so the WiFi interfaces can not start (invalid calibration data).
You could look into contents of your art partition.
Okay how would I begin looking into the contents of the art partition?
is it possible to repair this?
ART is specific to your device and your device only, if it's lost and you don't have a backup from your own device, it's gone for good. The calibration data is required to offset manufacturing tolerances of the components making up your WLAN card's rf chain, having precise correction factors available is required both for attaining good performance and being able to tune into a channel correctly, as well as regulatory compliance.
wait, don't I just find someone with a WNDR3800 like @mindwolf or @hnyman and follow this document here?
Would either of you dump your art partition and send me a copy?
No, as mentioned above, the calibration data is specific to each and every single device, it's unique to your device.
so then there's method to recover / repair it?
UPDATE wait I just found this collection, can I not use it?
You can try. WiFi may work but will not be perfect.
I have uploaded art from my own routers of the series to my community build dir, with instructions, and they seem to have copied it.
Could you try flashing another firmware such as gargoyle or ddwrt? maybe even stock firmware?
Unless there is a hardware failure, It can be recovered.
no offense @mindwolf but your last advice caused me to brick the device.
So what are we testing by going back to stock? since the kernal log shows missing ART partition pretty clearly.
A valid and correct ART is required by any firmware you're going to find, OEM, OpenWrt, whatever. Without it, the router should start up as a wired router, but the wireless capability is gone.
It's merely pointing out that every firmware, including those suggested by mindwolf, depends on ART to be valid for enabling the wireless cards. Yes, you can try installing those, it just won't make a difference, no ART, no WLAN.
While that will technically classify as a 'software' failure, it did brick the wireless hardware hard, without recovery options (unless you happen to have a backup from your own device). There are two things you never want to happen to your device, overwriting the bootloader (on spi-nor you might be able to recover this, by desoldering the SOIC-8 flash chip, buying an external SPI writer and flashing it back (such as your device) - on NAND this is more difficult) or the wireless calibration data (ART), contrary to the bootloader this is written to the device during production and unique to your device and not recoverable (unless you happen to have calibration equipment out of the 6-figure USD range and have access to the proprietary calibration software from QCA, which you'll only get under NDA after buying chipsets by the thousands of reels - and even then you'd only be able to operate it legally after obtaining a ham license).
I didn't instruct you to do that part.
I've bricked the Netgear 3800, TP Link C7 v4, and Linksys wrt3200acm just for fun with master builds. All have lived to see another day. Some people claim the only way to unbrick the C7 is via tftp. It's not true. I've done it via mtd commands. Now in your case I have no clue what you've done otherwise than my advice. No offense, you didn't pay attention before reacting.
I feel like I should step in and correct a few assumptions here.
While @mindwolf did advise to force the factory image via sysupgrade and was ill advised, the wifi interfaces for this device were already not showing up.
Whatever problem occurred that erased the ART partition had occurred well before I created this thread.
I'm never got a clear answer from him how reflashing the unit with gargoyle or stock would fix the ART partition and I'd venture to guess they won't.
That being said the advice to full flash using the wrong image, while well intention-ed was just bad.
It's fine now the device is recovered (to the extent that it can be, minus wifi) but I will be slightly more cautious about taking random advice on the forums in the future, or at least attempting to vet it before executing.
Lastly @slh I feel like you've just been explaining the same information over and over again in this thread, which while appreciated isn't really what I'm asking for. I don't expect to get the wifi working as originally calibrated from the manufacturer but if restoring the ART partition from those github sources I found gets it working at all that's significantly better than not working imho, especially as this would be my primary backup device for when my WNDR3700v1 finally croaks.
If you had looked at the link you'd see it's the factory one which is why it was complaining about the image file format
incorrect...
is sound... using the appropriate technique, tftp or oem.
prevents bricks... like
nobody here wants you to have issues or stand in the way of resolving them... all advice offered is for your understanding.
Few comments to this sad discussion:
Wndr3800 firmware release images are much smaller than the allowed partition. Flashing the factory image via sysupgrade force option should not overwrite art. Wrong image will naturally brick the device but that can be fixed via new flash via tftp recovery flash.
As there is the tftp recovery, it is really hard to brick permanently. I can image a few ways, one of which is using flashing commands directly from serial console and getting some address or size wrong and thus overwriting or clearing the art area.
Similarly, compiling a personal oversized image and forcing it via tftp or serial might succeed in that.
The normal sysupgrade is limited by mtd size and write protection info, to my knowledge, so I doubt if sysupgrade script could even overwrite art.
again I don't think it's a particularly sad discussion. The router had no wifi when I started this thread, I tried some things based on some advice, it bricked, I reflashed it from the brick, it still has no wifi, everything is fine.
Thanks to everyone who tried to help.
UPDATE Small update nearly a year later, took this unit out of storage and reflashed the art partition, unit is working. More can be read here
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