TP-Link AX23 (US) v1.2 installation fails over web UI and recovery

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Greetings, I am attempting to flash OpenWrt on the aforementioned router.

OpenWrt version: 24.10.0

What I've tried so far:

  1. Regular web management UI. Provides the following error: "Upload Error"
  2. Uploading through recovery yields the following response: {"success":true,"errorcode":"0"} but the router does not attempt to reboot, eventually refreshing back to the same TP-Link recovery page.
  3. Flashing an older version of OpenWrt (23.05.5)

I have tried the same things on 2 different firmware versions that I could scrounge off the TP-Link website (had to downgrade through recovery):

  1. AX23_us_ca_tw_sg-2048-up-ver1-1-0-P1[20231115-rel64818]_2023-11-15_18.01.59
  2. AX23_us_ca_tw_sg-up-ver1-1-0-P1[20230725-rel55602]_2023-07-25_15.39.38

Looking through other threads, most of the errors on the web interface seemed to be "Invalid File Type" instead. I'm not sure if this different error matters since I can only find one other instance occurring in this thread. However, I did notice that both cases were models sold in Singapore as well, could that be the cause?

Any ideas? I'd probably destroy the PCB if I whipped out the soldering iron so that's out of the question.

2

There's always serial, which might require soldering :slight_smile:

3

For tplink you often need to use very short file names, rename factroy....bin to exactly factory.bin. Also square brackets in oem file names inside .zip sometimes cause problems.

1 Like
4

To add: check that OEM firmware can upgrade to same version
Then clear configuration (if you have nothing set up)
And certainly do the upgrades fresh after boot when telemetry modules have not yet bloated up.

5

Hmm, 20231115-rel64818 can upgrade to the same version but 20230725-rel55602 cannot (at least through the standard web management method), regardless of whether the files were renamed... As it did before, upgrading to the same version does work through web recovery.

I reset the router and booted into recovery without setting up admin credentials then uploaded the OpenWrt image (now renamed as factory.bin). Alas, no change.

I presume I won't be able to get dmesg output on stock firmware so I have no idea if the router does anything once the file is uploaded.

6

do you have serial access, there's mention of TP-Link changing the bootloader on the latest ax23 firmware:

NOTE: This firmware can not be degraded to the previous version.

7

do you know which firmware version your device came with ?

a warning on the device wiki page might be required ...

8

Can't recall what it originally was. But assuming the archived regional website is correct, the only other version available was Archer AX23(SG)_V1.2_220420.

That live image is still hosted on their site. I grabbed a copy and could attempt a downgrade. I assume it'll get blocked just like on the v1 devices.

do you have serial access

Unfortunately not. Though someone else did manage to get it installed on that version through recovery. I do also have a build from the same release date and major version but for hardware v1.2 (from which I attempted the flash earlier).