Stuck in the middle of belkin rt3200 upgrade to 24.10

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi everyone,

I have a belkin rt3200 running the ubi format.

I have been carefully moving through the procedure on the rt3200 page to upgrade to 24.10. So far I have done the following:

Upgraded to the last version on the old bootloader (23.05.6)

I generated an archive (steo2), made the modifications to the archive (step3 a-c), downloaded the unsigned 24.10 installer (step4), downloaded the 24.10 sysupgrade image(step 5).

Then I flashed the unsigned installer unchecked the save config box and checked the force box(step6).

The router rebooted but luci did not come back online fully. It is stuck on loading view. I am hopeful because I can ssh into the router so it is not bricked. I am not using https.

Some things I tried:

Unplug router and plug back in multiple times. Hold the reboot button to restart. Ssh into router and restart luci. Clear browser cache etc. force reinstall luci. Delete luci cache files.

I am stuck and hoping someone can help. I am hesitant to do the next step (flash 24.10 sysupgrade via ssh) because I'm unsure if that will make it worse.

Thanks in advance,

Jason

2

I’m hesitant to give advice but do have experience. I highly recommend you wait for others to pitch in.

Upgraded to the last version on the old bootloader (23.05.6)

Do you mean you updated the firmware to the last stable version of the 23.05.x branch? Or, did you reflash the UBI partition?

I generated an archive (steo2), made the modifications to the archive (step3 a-c), downloaded the unsigned 24.10 installer (step4), downloaded the 24.10 sysupgrade image(step 5).

I suspect if things went wrong, it may have happened here. I did note my experience here. So, I’ve not exactly followed your path.

Maybe, @el_charlie can chime in?

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Thanks so much for the quick reply.

Sorry for not being clear. Yes before I did anything I upgraded the firmware to the last stable version I could. Which was 23.05.6

I believe your method and what is in the docs is equivalent. You removed the files before generating the backup and the procedure I followed created the backup untar remove files then re-tar.

These steps are all preparation for after flashing the 24.10 unsigned installer.

So I flashed that installer and this is where I sit and luci is stuck in loading view mode.

There are threads that mention this issue after a firmware update (I'm general) and I think I tried all the common recommendations so far with no luck

I can confirm /etc/init.d/uhttpd status is running

So luci is running but not to where I see it get past “loading view”

Thanks,

Jason

4

I stated that it was an unintentional mistake but in truth it was a combination of “I’m lazy, and I don’t like the idea of untar + edit + retar”.

My instinct says, flash 24.10 and don’t keep your previous settings and be ready to go the USB to TTL (serial recovery) route. Like I said though, I’m hesitant to offer advice.

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Thanks! You and chat gpt agree. It gave me a whole list of things to check and they all seemed in order.

So after checking all these things I flashed the 24.10 sysupgrade.

Router rebooted but luci is still in the same state of loading view. Seeing this with both chromium and Firefox browsers.

I'm curious…is there a way to see if the sysupgrade was loaded via ssh? Found it cat /etc/banner. And yes it was successful in upgrading to 24.10.5

Thanks,

Jason

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Uh oh, that’s usually not a good sign /s.

When you ssh in you should see the version you’re running. At this point ,you should look at logread for clues

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Hahaha thanks yes I can see on /etc/banner and /etc/openert_release that I'm running 24.10.5 now.

Luci still won't load past “loading view”

Appreciate your help this far,

Jason

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Type logread at the terminal, press enter and paste the output

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Hope this will do for now. My lan is up and running but when I go to openwrt forum on the machine I'm accessing the router it says my browser is unsupported. It's an old arch Linux install of chromium and Firefox and neither work on the forum site.

Makes me think if luci is fine but it had been upgraded and my browser is incompatible now…

Google Photos

10

Try from a phone or standard device. I like *nix as much as the next guy but rolling release = perpetual problems all too often. Rule that out first.

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That's going to take me some time. I'll need to purchase a eth to USBC as I don't have another computer with eth Jack. I'll also need to set it to static ip addr

The lan works but the Wi-Fi is not back up so phone is out. I'm guessing because I haven't flashed the modified config tar file.

I'll check back in when I get this sorted

Than again for everything,

Jason

12

USB boot disk on your current hardware with a supported version of Ubuntu should do the trick.

You’ve restored back to OWRT defaults, so wifi is disabled. DHCP should be working, no need for static IP.

See here for how to enable WiFi via terminal:

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I think it’s probably safe to restore your backup from 23.05.x which I image had working WiFi? Like you, I suspect this is a PC issue and not an OpenWrt issue.

I will check back tomorrow, it’s getting late here. Hopefully, the brain trust around here can get you the rest of the way.

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Much appreciated,

So the updated bootloader is back compatible with old stable releases? That's neat. Although another alternative would be to do the final step and flash the modified config file. According to the instructions that should hopefully restore everything. If that doesn't work could I still roll back?

I tried to connect with work computer and while I can access Internet with it through the lan I couldn't access the router (network settings locked down) so I need to play with that as well tonight like get a eth to USBC converter.

Thanks again!

Jason

15

OK!!!

To partially close the loop on this, I moved forward with loading the tweaked saved config file (prepared as by instructions) did a reboot.

I could tell the config upload worked as it asked for my password for logging in (command line). I did have to power cycle but after that the radios did come back up yay!!!

But I still cannot load luci so @plater I bet you are right in that I need to update my Linux install and/or connect with a more standard machine.

That is in progress and I will report back.

Thanks again so much,

Jason

16

Thanks for sharing your arduous experience. Guess I won’t bother to upgrade this rt3200 to openwrt. Only use it as a backup to a ruckus unleashed 4 ap network, anyway. Appreciate it.

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@tdelco To give you some perspective I'm very inexperienced in these processes. After looking back I have to admit that the current documented process did work exactly as advertised so kudos to the devs and early adopters who worked that out.

I agree with @plater that my lan connected computer is likely the issue as it's been so long since it's been updated (which is another project) but also a reminder that I need a backup as that machine is a first gen aluminum body Mac from long long ago kept alive on a minimum arch Linux install. I did notice that after I updated to 23.05 only the system update page of luci was working the settings had red error banners. This was when I thought I would take pics of the settings in case they were lost. So perhaps Luci was updated somewhere along the line. I hadn't updated the router firmware since 2022…… I know I know…bad form.

My plan is to get a USB to eth for my wife's laptop and see how they goes. And if course hopefully report back here with that positive result. I will also post my command line steps in case this happens to anyone else.

Thanks,

Jason

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