Support for TP-Link Archer C2 v3

eureka! yes! it is official : ) https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ath79/generic/

thanks to x-logLT and jow- and Dorin and lars18th and rmilecki and blocktrron and... many others. It is joint effort... after all ; )

So sad, it bricked my TP-Link Archer C900 C2 V3.

First I flashed the following file (marked yellow) from this website in the normal TP-Link gui (192.168.0.1) on the firmware upgrade page.
archerc900c2v3_1

After the upgrade I was not able to access the new IP 192.168.1.1, the old gateway IP 192.168.0.1 seems to hang on something.
I tried to connect by SSH with command:
ssh root@192.168.1.1

It was successful, so I decided to upload the sysupgrade file on the router with WinSCP in the tmp folder and ran this command:
sysupgrade -v /tmp/openwrt-ath79-generic-tplink_archer-c2-v3-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

Still no access to the gui of OpenWrt...

I decided to download the files posted by Dorin in this topic on 18 nov.
I uploaded this file:
openwrt-ath79-generic-tplink_archer-c2-v3-squashfs-18.06.1factory.bin
to the tmp folder with WinSCP and ran this command:
mtd -r write /tmp/openwrt-ath79-generic-tplink_archer-c2-v3-squashfs-18.06.1factory.bin firmware

Now it's totally dead, only a green power on led is visible. No access to SSH anymore, nothing...
I hope someone can help me :no_mouth:.

Router back panel image uploaded here.

You have installed a snapshot image.

Prebuilt snapshot images do not come with any web interface or GUI . You will need to be comfortable using a command line and remote shell to install one yourself

Thanks for your response. Sad, it's too late I think because with the latest flash as described above only the power led lights up.
I found it's possible to flash the device by UART, is this an option in my case?

do i need to update to latest snapshots ? i see there is sysupgrade snapshot latest since dorin post

Thank you, it's unbricked :slight_smile:.

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yop! after sysupgrade I forgot that Lucy is not present in snapshots too : P
opkg update && opkg install luci-ssl-openssl libuhttpd-openssl

official snapshot has never kernel 4.14.97 and more fixes in code... working good so far

there is problem with 2,4 GHZ, when router running only 5 GHZ its ok
but when i turning on 2,ghz . router hangs. BAD GATEWAY out of memory

Hello everyone!
So what about this router? Is there working openwrt firmware for v3? I read this topic but I don't really understand...because somebody flashing succesfully but dont got GUI?
Mine is 3.0.1 Build 20180423 Rel. 53178(EU) firmware (original)
Is there any working fw with GUI what I can flash from stock fw, so no need any magic trick?
Thanks!

Archer C2 v3 downloads

Since this device currently has only snapshot support, there is no pre-installed GUI in the images. You have to install LuCI yourself.

Thx bro for the reply!
Is there any chance in the near future to comes GUI fw with openwrt (so not only snapshot support)?

Hi,

For everyone who has problems with "out of memory" - there is some issue with Candela Technologies firmware for ath10k. Building image self with original Qualcomm firmware fixes problem. I have now c2 v3 with 60 days uptime and no issues with leaking memory at all.

Can you give instructions for compiling image self with original Qualcomm firmware for ath10k or give a link to download one? I want to use openwrt, beacuse original gui of tp-link is not readable for me but on snapshots I have out of memory after 4-6hours.

It's typical OpenWRT build: Target ATH79 DTS, Target Profile Archer C2 V3. For not-candela drivers & firmware: Firmware -> uncheck ath10k-firmware-qca9887-ct, check ath10k-firmware-qca9887. Kernel modules -> Wireless drivers -> uncheck kmod-ath10k-ct, check kmod-ath10k. Works like charm for me.

Images here for those who can't do it by self (but I am not responsible if something is not working well - it's basic image with LuCI):
http://hskek.pl/c2v3/openwrt-ath79-generic-tplink_archer-c2-v3-squashfs-factory.bin
http://hskek.pl/c2v3/openwrt-ath79-generic-tplink_archer-c2-v3-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

1 Like

Hi, what about Wi-Fi functionality (5 Ghz especially)?

I was able to flash the C2V3 image onto an Archer C900 (the US variant.) Everything seems to be working, on par with the experience on a "real" C2V3. I've written up the instructions to do so here:

I was trying to install openwrt on my c900(us) using your instructions but it didn't work. The router just didn't want to accept re-packaged backup - ' Backup file error'. I even try to unpack it and repack it without changing anything and the router didn't accept that file either. The new file was also 64 bytes larger.
Do you have any idea what to try to make it work? I can send you my backups (original and repackaged) if that would help.
I've also tried to flash openwrt through tftp, using openwrt-ath79-generic-tplink_archer-c2-v3-squashfs-factory.bin file renamed to ArcherC900v1_recovery.bin. The router would transfer the file but it would not update. Any ideas here?

Hey, sorry about that! What's the firmware revision that your router is currently running? I assume that you were able to find the keys and decrypt your backup just fine. TFTP backup definitely won't work, I tried that route initially and it seems like it's protected by the same annoying verification mechanism.

First of all, thank you for your help.
It is running the latest official firmware - Archer C900(US)_V1_161130. I used the same firmware to extract the encryption keys and managed to decrypt my backup. I am doing this using arch linux and I am not sure if there is some problem with the way the data is encrypted, if my system is using AES-256-CBC. How can I specify the encryption method in your package.fish script?

After looking into it further, it seems like my scripts were broken (oops!) It wasn't appending the checksum to the front of the backup file correctly. I've fixed the scripts, rewritten them to be bash-compliant, and ran an old backup of mine through to make sure it encrypts and decrypts its own work correctly.
Please pull the latest version of the repository and try again. Thanks for your patience!
(by the way: the encryption method is not set by the script. the Go program handles encryption and decryption for the script automatically, all the script does is call the go program in the right sequence on the right files.)