UniFi 6 LR bricked after installing OpenWrt

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I purchased an UniFi 6 LR directly from Ubiquiti and first got it working with the official software but decided to switch to OpenWrt. I tried version 21.02.0 and 21.02.1 as well as the linked snapshot build (multiple versions) following the given instructions. The result is always that the led is steady white for a few seconds followed by a white flash and then it turns off. Till now I have always been able to restore the original firmware using tftp (on the first try it selected 192.168.1.32 as ip address instead of 192.168.1.20).

The Flash Layout matches the docs exactly and I am using MobaXTerm for ssh and scp.

Could anyone please give me some hints how to get this working?

Files I have used:
openwrt-mediatek-mt7622-ubnt_unifi-6-lr-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
openwrt-21.02.1-mediatek-mt7622-ubnt_unifi-6-lr-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
openwrt-21.02.0-mediatek-mt7622-ubnt_unifi-6-lr-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
Note: I once accidentally used the initramfs-kernel image instead of the sysupgrade image.

Additional Information:

U6-LR-BZ.5.60.23# uname -a
Linux U6-LR 4.4.198 #0 SMP Thu Aug 30 12:10:54 2018 aarch64 GNU/Linux

U6-LR-BZ.5.60.23# cat /proc/version
Linux version 4.4.198 (builder@owrt1505-builder) (gcc version 5.4.0 (LEDE GCC 5.4.0 r3979-2252731af4) ) #0 SMP Thu Aug 30 12:10:54 2018
2

Any news on this? Did you manage to get it working?

3

Are you really sure they're bricked ? Current snapshot images DO work but the LED isn't. So please wait a while after flashing OpenWRT (open a ping to 192.168.1.1 for instance). When the AP finished first boot it probably takes a few minutes to become responsive due a (mount_root) process that takes some (CPU) time. This is only the first time after a OpenWRT firmware upgrade, future boots should finish way faster.

Could you please share your TFTP recovery method / experience in THIS post ? Me and others having issues with the official ubiquiti tftp recovery procedure not working at all. Tnx!

4

I just got mine going by putting it in the 'tftp' mode following https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/204910124-UniFi-TFTP-Recovery-for-Bricked-Access-Points. Only problem was that the device was not pingable at 192.168.1.20. I also tried different other IPs up to 192.168.1.32 without success.

Than I decided to do a network scan using nmap - success!

$ sudo nmap -sn 192.168.1.*
Starting Nmap 7.91 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2022-02-16 07:14 CET
Nmap scan report for 192.168.1.34
Host is up (0.00011s latency).
MAC Address: D0:21:XX:XX:XX:XX (Ubiquiti Networks)
Nmap scan report for fedora (192.168.1.25)
Host is up.
Nmap done: 256 IP addresses (2 hosts up) scanned in 15.09 seconds

Nmap discovered a host at 192.168.1.34 (???). This ip was pingable and for the first time tftp succeeded putting the latest firmware (5.60.23) on my device:

$ tftp -v
(to) 192.168.1.34
Connected to 192.168.1.34 (192.168.1.34), port 69
tftp> binary
mode set to octet
tftp> rexmt 1
tftp> timeout 60
tftp> put BZ.MT7622_5.60.23+13051.211209.2348.bin
putting BZ.MT7622_5.60.23+13051.211209.2348.bin to 192.168.1.34:BZ.MT7622_5.60.23+13051.211209.2348.bin [octet]
Sent 14649771 bytes in 1.7 seconds [70975982 bit/s]

Note the stock firmware of my device was 5.60.8.

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5

First: I am sure that my device was bricket, because I could not even enter TFTP-Mode again.

I got a new LR6 and tried the flash procedure again. This time it worked. Though the LED still is not working. The boot procedure starts with a solid white LED then the LED flashed white multiple times and then turns off. After a while the device is accessible on 192.168.1.1.

Tried with OpenWrt 21.02.2

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