Someone has a bootlog? And or pcb images, FCC looks the same for c50v3 ..
Seems to be same system like v3.0 but i cant promise. Should be possible to flash the v3 image when there is no difference in ram or rom. Dont try it! Send me Images from its inside instead!
Greetings Elias
Hi, I also have this router, and I am too wondering if v3 will work. The FCC ID for mine is TE7C50V3, as you said. I took some pics of the inside. Let me know if you need me to zoom in on anything or take better ones.
Thx,
the pcb is identical. I cant read the ram type, could be a different one. I expect they use a different bootloader version.
I will have a look into the binaries they both use uboot 4.3.0.0(1.1.3) i can say now but there could be some minor differences.
As far as i can see the only difference is in the bootloader, openwrt wont replace the bootloader, hence i believe you can flash v3 version. I believe V4 is for a different country regulatory domain. But that shouldnt make a difference since in openwrt you will choose yours to meet the law.
Binwalk output:
I am confused about the output of mktplinkfw2.
These images are original stock images from tplink support, should'nt they match the checksum expected by mtkplinkfw2?
xyz@xyz:~# mktplinkfw -i Archer_C50v3_EU_0.9.1_0.4_up_boot\[170608-rel35472\].bin
File name : Archer_C50v3_EU_0.9.1_0.4_up_boot[170608-rel35472].bin
File size : 0x007c0200 / 8126976 bytes
[mktplinkfw] *** error: file does not seem to have V1/V2 header!
xyz@xyz:~# mktplinkfw2 -i Archer_C50v3_EU_0.9.1_0.4_up_boot\[170608-rel35472\].bin
File name : Archer_C50v3_EU_0.9.1_0.4_up_boot[170608-rel35472].bin
File size : 0x007c0200 / 8126976 bytes
Version 2 Header size : 0x00000200 / 512 bytes
Unknown value 1 : 0x01000000 / 16777216 bytes
Header MD5Sum1 : 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 (*ERROR*)
--> expected : 0c 4e 62 99 a5 bd 58 b1 83 6e 58 35 6c 0c 2e 07
Header MD5Sum2 : ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff (purpose yet unknown, unchecked here)
Firmware version : ver. 2.0
Hardware ID : 0x001d9ba4 (unknown)
Hardware Revision : 0x00000079
Software version : 0.9.1-0.4
Kernel data offset : 0x00020400 / 132096 bytes
Kernel data length : 0x00129260 / 1217120 bytes
Kernel load address : 0x00000080
Kernel entry point : 0x50c10080
Rootfs data offset : 0x00140000 / 1310720 bytes
Rootfs data length : 0x003dc000 / 4046848 bytes
Boot loader data offset: 0x00000000 / 0 bytes
Boot loader data length: 0x00018284 / 98948 bytes
Total firmware length : 0x007c0200 / 8126976 bytes
xyz@xyz:~# mktplinkfw2 -i Archer_C50v4_EU_0.9.1_0.2_up_boot\[180313-rel54477\].bin
File name : Archer_C50v4_EU_0.9.1_0.2_up_boot[180313-rel54477].bin
File size : 0x00790200 / 7930368 bytes
Version 2 Header size : 0x00000200 / 512 bytes
Unknown value 1 : 0x02000000 / 33554432 bytes
Header MD5Sum1 : 6d 1b 34 41 27 f0 fc 1a ae 9a 34 c6 e3 e0 f2 27 (*ERROR*)
--> expected : 73 ce 50 98 7b f6 ca 8a 69 33 d0 3c 59 32 bd eb
Header MD5Sum2 : ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff (purpose yet unknown, unchecked here)
Firmware version : ver. 2.0
Hardware ID : 0x001d589b (unknown)
Hardware Revision : 0x00000093
Software version : 0.9.1-0.2
Kernel data offset : 0x00020400 / 132096 bytes
Kernel data length : 0x00129400 / 1217536 bytes
Kernel load address : 0x00000080
Kernel entry point : 0x50c10080
Rootfs data offset : 0x00140000 / 1310720 bytes
Rootfs data length : 0x00591000 / 5836800 bytes
Boot loader data offset: 0x00000000 / 0 bytes
Boot loader data length: 0x00017da0 / 97696 bytes
Total firmware length : 0x00790200 / 7930368 bytes
I just received a C50 v4 from Amazon (although the description specified v3).
Has anybody tried flashing the v3 firmware? Is it worth trying?
Does the different partition layout of the original firmware make a difference for openwrt?
As far as I see, debricking should be possible even if the wrong firmware was flashed - can anybody confirm that?
Thanks in advance.
TP-Link partially broke TFTP recovery with the v4. You will need to pad the Factory image, as TFTP Recovery uses wrong offsets.
The C50v4 is indeed hardware-wise completely identical with the C50v3, the difference lies within a TP-Link design-choice. They are using a split-uboot design, already present in some way on newer QCA based devices. It consists of a "factory-uboot" and a "image-uboot". Factory-uboot is never touched and contains recovery-routines (TFTP / HTTP). "image-uboot" seems to be updated with every firmware-release.
I ported OpenWRT on the C50v4, but i'm not sure if my design with integrating a from source pre-compiled uboot image is the right way. There is no way to flash an image without the "image-uboot" as every way (WebUI / TFTP / HTTP) requires this bootloader to be in place.
It will poop out a factory-image (For use with GUI and HTTP recovery) and a tftp recovery for use with the partially-broken TFTP recovery (Hold down reset button as usual). In case you want to go back to TP-Link firmware, note "Modified firmware-uboot" in the linked commit message. Enter this HTTP recovery, there you can upload the TP-Link firmware.
Everything i'm aware of is working fine and we even have support for TP-Links new U-Boot integrated HTTP recovery.
I asume they've done that because they'll switch to tplink header v3 on theire low cost router images soon.
Do you had a look at: https://github.com/xdarklight/mktplinkfw3 ?
I quote :
" There is no obvious way to get an OpenWrt image booted which doesn't bundle a bootloader, has boot_ofs and boot_len values of 0x00 , the required second header at 0x20200 followed by kernel+rootfs. Changing the kernel_ofs value to 0x00 0x02 0x04 0x00 for both headers didn't worked as expected. I guess the kernel_ofs should be read by the bootloader to identify the kernel start address within the flash. Either the bootloader has a hard-coded kernel start address or my value is wrong."
I would like to give the possibility to use a single uboot enivronment to save some space for the rootfs which is smaler on the v4. For tplink there is no need to have that space left but for us openwrt users it is important, particularly without usb port. So a downgrade to v3 would be my choice. So tftp is they way to go for me, its quite easy XD.
For the user who do not like to struggle with a second program your solution could be better one.
Thx for your work i dont have a v4 to give it a try.
works perfectly with UI flash. opkg install luci if you want LUCI web interface is the only thing needed. Firmware is stable and has been running for 3 days now transfering 100g over both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz