Upgrade to 21.02 from 15.05 fails (gl-inet)

I have a GL-S1300 with initial OpenWrt Chaos Calmer 15.05.1.

On trying to upgrade to 21.2.0, after downloading the corresponding file and checking its sha256sum, the router restarts but still with 15.05. I tried twice, the second one immediately after the first one, but still the same issue.

https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/21.02.0/targets/ipq40xx/generic/openwrt-21.02.0-ipq40xx-generic-glinet_gl-s1300-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

Thanks for your help.

root@GL-S1300:/tmp# sysupgrade -v /tmp/openwrt-21.02.0-ipq40xx-generic-glinet_gl-s1300-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
sh: out of range
Saving config files...
etc/AdGuardHome/config.yaml
etc/config/bledevices
etc/config/ddns
etc/config/dhcp
etc/config/dnscrypt-proxy
etc/config/dropbear
etc/config/ecm
etc/config/firewall
etc/config/gl_s2s
etc/config/gl_son
etc/config/glbigdata
etc/config/glconfig
etc/config/glcrond
etc/config/glforward
etc/config/glfw
etc/config/glipv6
etc/config/glmodem
etc/config/hyd
etc/config/lbd
etc/config/luci
etc/config/mwan3
etc/config/network
etc/config/nodogsplash
etc/config/openvpn
etc/config/qcacfg80211
etc/config/repacd
etc/config/rpcd
etc/config/rtty
etc/config/samba
etc/config/skb_recycler
etc/config/ssid-steering
etc/config/ssids
etc/config/stubby
etc/config/sysstat
etc/config/system
etc/config/tertf
etc/config/thermal
etc/config/tor
etc/config/ubootenv
etc/config/ucitrack
etc/config/uhttpd
etc/config/vpn_service
etc/config/wireguard
etc/config/wireguard_server
etc/config/wireless
etc/config/wsplcd
etc/dropbear/dropbear_rsa_host_key
etc/firewall.user
etc/fw_env.config
etc/group
etc/hosts
etc/inittab
etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
etc/openvpn/cert/dh1024.pem
etc/openvpn/update-resolv-conf
etc/opkg/keys/53bad1233d4c98c5
etc/opkg/keys/64510c11b60d17be
etc/opkg/keys/de98a2dd1d0f8a07
etc/passwd
etc/profile
etc/rc.local
etc/samba/smb.conf.template
etc/samba/smbpasswd
etc/shadow
etc/shells
etc/ssmtp/revaliases
etc/ssmtp/smsforward.upgrade
etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf
etc/stubby/stubby.yml
etc/stubby/stubby.yml.default
etc/stubby/stubby_nextdns.yml
etc/stubby/stubby_nextdns_default.yml
etc/sysctl.conf
etc/sysstat/sysstat
etc/tertf/tertfinfo_bak
etc/tor/torrc
etc/uhttpd.crt
etc/uhttpd.key
etc/uhttpd.key
etc/uhttpd.crt
Terminated
root@GL-S1300:/tmp#

Do not try to preserve files. Make a backup and then flash without saving settings.

You might need to do an intermediate upgrade to openwrt 18 or 19.

You better ask gl-inet, as you are likely running their proprietary derivative, not the proper OpenWrt.

  • There was no ipq40xx support in OpenWrt in 2015 (when chaos calmer was released)
  • You have several config files that hint toward gl-inet...

Sysupgrade fails "out of range", so something goes wrong already there.

3 Likes

You need to flash the factory-to-openwrt file from the gl-inet GitHub first.
This is due to the router having 2 storage chips, the 8GB and a smaller one.
The GL-Inet image boots from the smaller one... I think so you first need to say boot from the 8GB one and then you can install the stock openwrt.

This is what I did to get it working