Upgraded TL-WA901ND v3 from LuCI v15.05 to v18.06 - now LuCI fails

Mainly some advice. LuCI fails, but SSH access works fine. So should I attempt to:

  1. Remove some packages to allow LuCI to work? via command line (what and how?)
  2. Forget v18.06 due to limited 4/32 memory constraints, and re-flash back to v15.05?
  3. Something else?

Appreciate the advise,
Andrew

If you're currently using an 18.06.* stable release removing packages will only help if you installed them afterwards, removing packages that come with the release won't free up memory, they'll remain and just get marked as unavailable, which will actually end up taking a little more space. It would be better to make your own build and leave Luci out to free that space rather than going back to 15.05, if you prefer to have Luci i'm sure there are other packages you could leave out, but i'm not too familiar with 4/32 devices so not sure which they would be, maybe someone else could recommend.

Thanks Mike. I'd like to continue to use LuCI, so the make my own build, or find a pre-built binary containing LuCI sounds like my best option. I'd like to be running v18.06.* stable so that I have the latest security patches, etc.

Before I go too far, can you point me to command line instructions on how to update OpenWRT please? Then I know I'm good to 'deploy' once I have an image with what I need.

Thanks again,
Andrew

Your browser may still have old LuCI pages in its cache, this can cause a new version of LuCI on the same IP to not render properly. Try clearing the browser cache.

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Completely forgot about clearing cache, definitely try that first, but just in case you'd put your new build in /tmp and then -

cd /tmp
sysupgrade -n yourfilename.bin

(or whatever your file name is)

The -n option installs without keeping settings, if you want to keep settings just remove -n.

I cleared my browser cache, but problem still persists. Looks more 'back end' than web pages related...

Error:

/usr/lib/lua/luci/dispatcher.lua:234: /etc/config/luci seems to be corrupt, unable to find section 'main'
stack traceback:
	[C]: in function 'assert'
	/usr/lib/lua/luci/dispatcher.lua:234: in function 'dispatch'
	/usr/lib/lua/luci/dispatcher.lua:127: in function </usr/lib/lua/luci/dispatcher.lua:126>

What is the easiest way to get a .bin file onto the device? Is FTP included, or does rcp work?

You can use ssh, if you're on Windows Putty will work, if mac or linux they both have ssh built in.

edit - sorry, wasn't thinking, i should have said scp, not ssh, Winscp should work on Windows, mac and linux have it built in (not a windows user so i forgot, sorry about that).

Yes, I use Putty (but with minimal install), but I didn't know it could do file transfer on a binary file. I think you meant PSCP, correct? I need to find a more complete Putty install... Thanks

I should have said Winscp for Windows to transfer the file, it may also have ssh, but it's been a while since i've used it and just don't remember unfortunately, but i do know Putty has ssh which is what you'll use to run the sysupgrade.

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