Upgrading WRT1900AC v1 to 21.02

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi All,

I have a question regarding the upgrading of 19.07 --> 21.02.

I had orginally gone to perform a sysupgrade, however I got the warning message:

Device linksys,mamba not supported by this image Supported devices: linksys,wrt1900ac-v1 armada-xp-linksys-mamba linksys,mamba - Image version mismatch: image 2.0, device 1.0. Please wipe config during upgrade (force required) or reinstall. Reason: Partition design has changed compared to older versions (up to 19.07) due to kernel size restrictions. Upgrade via sysupgrade mechanism is not possible, so new installation via factory style image is required. 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.

So I did some investigation and it appears we need to change the partition size... ok.

My question is, what is the upgrade process here? I only ask because I have read conflicting information and I would rather not have to find out the hard way I have bricked my router.

Do I?

  • Perform a forced sysupgrade, not keeping my config settings -- done (easy) -- will this upgrade the partition size?

  • Perform a forced sysupgrade of the factory image not keeping the config settings? I've read 'sysupgrade -n -F factory.img' in Upgrading Linksys WRT1900ac v1 to 21.02-rc1 and Problem with linksys wrt1900ac v1 sysugrade to 21.02 not supported? , but I also read information in the official upgrade notes that indicates if you sysupgrade with the factory image you can brick the router.

  • Revert the router back to the stock image and load the openwrt factory image. (hardest and most labour-intensive)

Any ideas? Can someone please point me in the correct direction?

Thanks all,

Glen.

2

This is what I did, however, I have a little instability with the wifi with some device on the version 21.02.

3

The wifi instability must be annoying -- I think I had some of that back in prior to v19 days where there were specific builds to the wireless drivers so I hope that hasn't been reintroduced.

I disabled wifi when I moved the wifi fuctionality off to another system. :slight_smile:

Did you perform the sysupgrade via CLI or LUCI? (I suppose it should not matter?)

Thanks for your reply

Glen

4

done with luci

5

For what it's worth, I use the WRT1900AC as my main router, without any wifi enabled. I always perform any upgrade from the original firmware. That means whenever I upgrade, I switch boot partitions to the Linksys firmware and use the factory.img file to upgrade. Afterwards I install the files I need via opkg and apply saved settings. It's a little more time intensive, but I know I will always have a working OEM partition if anything goes terribly wrong.

Since I upgraded this way 21.02 is the first time I've had to set up my router manually since the 18 series. That said, 21.02 seems to be working great!

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6

[glenp42] does the wifi work fine for you ?

7

Upgrade went easier than I expected, given I had to rebuild the config...

I don't have wifi enabled, I disabled that months ago when I needed more coverage and put up some real AP's.

Everything else seems to be operating well though, but it's only been a few days so far. :slight_smile:

Glen.

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