Unbricking Linksys E8450 (UBI)

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I had OpenWRT installed on this device, but bricked it. I was able to do the serial recovery, as outlined in the wiki.

I get everything, except the last sentence:

After reboot, the grep “(release)” /dev/mtd0ro command should give you v2.4 again.

What am I supposed to do?

In any case, after rebooting, I get this page:

System running in recovery (initramfs) mode.

No changes to settings will be stored and are lost after rebooting. This mode should only be used to install a firmware upgrade
Model Linksys E8450 (UBI)
Architecture ARMv8 Processor rev 4
Target Platform mediatek/mt7622
Firmware Version OpenWrt 22.03.1 r19777-2853b6d652 / LuCI openwrt-22.03 branch git-22.245.77528-487e58a
Kernel Version 5.10.146

I remembered from the original installation, that is the point to upload the sysupgrade file. I tried them one by one from the installation instructions page, but they all fail. The router just goes dark. I can do the serial recovery again, but it seems I can not get the “proper” file installed. I tried downgrading to the manufacturer firmware, but the same happens and the router just goes dark.

Any information would be appreciated.

Edit: I also tried to upgrade via attended upgrade, but it would not find any upgrades. Even though prior to bricking it was on 24.x

2

Typically you just sysupgrade and it becomes persistent again.

3

That’s what I thought and had tried.

I do get this warning, after uploading the sysupgrade file via Luci:

Flash image? 
The flash image was uploaded. Below is the checksum and file size listed, compare them with the original file to ensure data integrity. Click 'Continue' below to start the flash procedure.  
Size: 10.18 MiB MD5: cdbe1ba79ea727a95cddd62c67de14dc SHA256: 8464ae1cadde96e2055fcc9a62ca215719a201cbfab1ca3f7ead0c62e387e446  
Keep settings and retain the current configuration  
Tue Oct 11 15:01:17 UTC 2022 upgrade: The device is supported, but this image is incompatible for sysupgrade based on the image version (1.0->2.0). Tue Oct 11 15:01:17 UTC 2022 upgrade: SPI-NAND flash layout changes require bootloader update. Please run the UBI installer version 1.1.0+ (unsigned) first. Image check failed.  The uploaded image file does not contain a supported format. Make sure that you choose the generic image format for your platform.  
Include in backup a list of current installed packages at /etc/backup/installed_packages.txt  Image check failed:  Tue Oct 11 15:01:17 UTC 2022 upgrade: The device is supported, but this image is incompatible for sysupgrade based on the image version (1.0->2.0). Tue Oct 11 15:01:17 UTC 2022 upgrade: SPI-NAND flash layout changes require bootloader update. Please run the UBI installer version 1.1.0+ (unsigned) first. Image check failed.   Force upgrade  Select 'Force upgrade' to flash the image even if the image format check fails. Use only if you are sure that the firmware is correct and meant for your device!

When I force it anyway, the LEDs blink for a while and eventually go dark. After that the router does not turn on and I have to do the serial recovery again, to get any kind of access.

4

I was able to get it working again following these instructions:

5

Just a guess but a very likely reason: bogus warning

If you have restored older config, you may have restored also an old value of the compatibility string included in /etc/config/system...

6

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