Update: the partition table in the firmware is wrong, but because the rootfs is read-only in stock firmware, no harm is caused.
The actual partition table is 128k(factory-uboot)ro,128k(u-boot)ro,15360k@0x40000(firmware),704k@0xf40000(config)ro,64k@0xff0000(art)ro
I am recovering my bricked router
I had to create a separate board file (mach-archer-a7-v5.c) due to different art and default-mac locations.
However, in the middle of the process, I bricked my router and somehow restored the factory firmware. Some of my factory partitions are empty. Although factory firmware runs normally and can be flashed into OpenWRT, I am not 100% sure that it would work on a clean, out-of-box A7.
It flashed but I haven't found it on the lan yet. I thought OpenWRT would come up on 192.168.1.1 but it doesn't appear to be there. TP-link's 192.168.0.1 doesn't work either. Nor the local address I assigned to it when it was running TP-link's firmware.
Connect the archer a7 with its WAN port to one of the LAN ports of your current router, the defaults are to request an IP address via DHCP and should get it online without any kind of configuration. Once you provided internet access for it opkg update && opkg install luci will provide you with the normal webinterface.
Ah, but I want to run it as a local LAN only bridge. So I changed the IP address to my local network's static address. I can login via ssh at that local static address. I added a 'gateway' option to /etc/config/network and 'netstat -rn' says routing is correct:
The procedure depicted above, using dhcp, is the most simple way to install a webinterface on OpenWrt - how you configure it afterwards is another issue (you can invoke firstboot to get to the original state).
Just got an Archer A7 (v5) and it worked fine. Flashed the snapshot build that @slh linked. Power cycled my modem to get internet, then SSH'd into 192.168.1.1 and installed luci (opkg update && opkg install luci).
Just bought a A7 v5, updated to latest stock firmware Archer A7(US)_V5_181210 and installed the snapshot r9278-39273b8 via web interface without any issues.
Downside of a snapshot is you have to update opkg package list daily, or you will hit a hashsum mismatch error