Hi, I got a TP-Link WDR3600 v1.1 today and wanted to put OpenWRT onto it. Now I have a bricked device (wlan is up but wrongly configured, and I cannot ssh/telnet/webclient..., lan is also broken in whatever manner and I cannot reach anything) and I am unable to get it working again. Here is what I did to brick it:

- I went to http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr3600 and was unable to find a firmware image download there, so I googled
- I came across http://www.ip-phone-forum.de/showthread.php?t=252378 which brought me to the image file http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_a … actory.bin which I "upgraded" to using the TP-Link standard interface
- I installed luci using openkg according to http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/luci.essentials
- I poked a bit around the luci web interface, found wifi settings and added a WLAN-PSK2 wifi with "automatic" encryption, a password and using the 2.4Ghz wlan interface
- I succesfully connected to the wlan with my laptop, but noticed that I was now having the WAN ip (the ip the router uses to connect to the internet itself) and assumed DHCP was broken or not running
- I went to the luci dhcp options and checked, but there was no way to specify whether the dhcp should run on wifi or not. It ran fine on LAN, so I assumed it was probably not configured to run on Wifi. I googled...
- I looked at this guide: http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/recipes/routedap I assumed, maybe if I fixed my configuration files I would have dhcp running. So I checked my present config files and compared them
- I added the 'interface wifi' section according to Step 1 with ip 192.168.1.1, then config 'wifi-iface' section with device wlan0 (I checked on ifconfig for the proper interface name) and psk2 encryption added as described in Step 2
- I rebooted

Voilà, router boots again but no LAN dhcp, no wlan DHCP (but wlan is there), and it appears to drop all packets (cannot ping/ssh/telnet/....).

For unbricking, I tried:

- Turning router off/on, listening on UDP 4919 and waiting  for the packet to press the reset button (with the exact tcpdump command used in http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/gener … wrt.method and ip set to 192.168.1.2, netmask to 255.255.255.0) -> packet never arrives (but the broken no-dhcp no-pingable-router wlan comes up as always, so the system boots)
- Turning router off/on, simply pressing the reset button randomly to trigger failsafe
- Turning router off/on and instantly telnetting (netcat) to 192.168.1.1 port 23 to see if tftp was working. netcat simply terminates without doing anything, so apparently not working either
- Turning router off/on, pressing reset button 15+ seconds for built-in factory reset. After waiting for a while, nothing interesting happens, and manually turning off/on brings up the openwrt with its broken wlan as always
- Turning router off, pressing reset button down, turning router on, waiting for 15+ seconds for another shot at the built-in factory reset. Same, nothing happens.

Now what to do? I am not sure what JTAG even is, and soldering stuff to the board for serial connections is also a bit beyond my hardware knowledge. All I want is having the router in any state where I can simply connect and just DO ANYTHING again.

(Last edited by jonasthiem on 30 Jan 2013, 20:15)

Instead of telnetting to 192.168.1.1.....

Make sure your laptop (or whatever hard wired connected device you're using) is set on the ip address 192.168.1.xx (say 10 but as long as it's not 1 and is under 100 you're fine).

Connect the wire from laptop to a port on the wndr3600.

Start a ping on the laptop, if running windows use the following specific command.

ping -t 192.168.1.1

If linux

ping 192.168.1.1

NOW power cycle the router a few times, wait 3 minutes between each power cycle to give it time to boot and watch the ping......

If you get succsssful responses at any point let us know.

p.s. Where are you?

(Last edited by pinnoccio on 30 Jan 2013, 20:30)

Having made my WDR3600 unreachable earlier this week, I too had to enter failsafe mode. I didn't see you mention the fast blinking - see http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr4300

I changed the network setting on my Mac to have the 192.168.1.2 statis IP & the listed subnet. I powered the router up & pressed the reset button on next to the left antenna on the rear. The 2nd light (the SYS light) began a fast blink. I connected by telnet - mount_root; mtd -r erase rootfs_data && reboot

I was able to restore full functionality. I sort of remember waiting for the UDP packet, but it never showed up. Maybe I did something wrong.

Someone on IRC now gave me a visual hint that helps when there is no UDP packet: exactly right after the sys LED lights up for the first time. I must have pressed too early (another LED comes on before that one), and never got into failsafe.

Now I finally ended up in OpenWRT failsafe and everything is restored again \o/ even the dhcp on wifi works now, I just picked a wrong option.

=> unbricked :-)

Thanks for all the responses!

(Last edited by jonasthiem on 30 Jan 2013, 20:47)

Alright, hoping someone can help me out with this...and that I haven't just bricked my unit

It's the TL-WDR3600 v1.1.  I got OpenWRT running on it just fine using "openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wdr3600-v1-squashfs-factory.bin", but couldn't download luci-app-qos.  No idea why.  Kept failing with a kernel error.  Figured I'd flash the sysupgrade ("openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wdr3600-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin").  That, apparently, was a bad idea.

More than 10 minutes goes by and it hasn't refreshed or rebooted, so I rebooted it myself.  I doubt I interrupted the update, but maybe I shouldn't have used syupgrade at all?  Anyway, it won't resolve to 192.168.1.1.

When I TFTP into it, I get the "login as:" prompt (yay! right?), but no combination of admin/root will let me in.  I tried my old password and nothing.  I can't touch it.

I followed the failsafe instructions (power on, wait for sys light to come on, hold down reset button and the sys light blinks rapidly).  I set my ethernet adapter's IPv4 to 192.168.1.2/255.255.255.0/192.168.1.1 and launch "recvudp.exe"...and nothing happens.  I mean, the terminal window pops up, but I never get the failsafe message from the router.

I've tried leaving recvudp open and power cycling the router (and going back into failsafe mode) and still nothing.

Thoughts?  Is it truly bricked? 

Okay, someone suggested going in via telnet instead of SSH and sure enough, I can get in!  However, I can't get any farther.  I followed the instructions found here (wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/generic.failsafe#in.failsafe.mode)...in short, I did:

mount_root
passwd
mtd -r erase rootfs_data

From there, it says it's erasing data and then says it's rebooting, but hangs (I assume because it's rebooting).  I leave it alone for a while, then try to hit up 192.168.1.1 via the browser and nothing happens (the IP never resolves).  I've also tried power-cycling the router, and still nothing.  I can't SSH in, either...but I can go back in via telnet.

Thoughts?

Well, in case anyone stumbles across this thread, I'm going to post what finally ended up working.

I had SSH access, but when I go to 192.168.1.1, I get nothing (so no web UI).  Not sure why, but whatever.  Also, for some reason, I lost SSH access when I left it unplugged, so I had to go back in via telnet (using PuTTY) and follow the commands I posted above, including establishing a password.  So now we're back to SSH access and the router is hooked up the cable modem so that it will have Internet access (so it can download the firmware).  Via the console, I then did:

cd /tmp
wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_a … actory.bin
mtd -r write /tmp/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wdr3600-v1-squashfs-factory.bin firmware

I left it up until it said it was rebooting, and then left it for a little longer.  I then closed the console, opened it back up and went in again via SSH.  The rest probably isn't necessary, but it's what I did, anyway:

opkg update
opkg install luci
/etc/init.d/uhttpd enable
/etc/init.d/uhttpd start
opkg install luci-app-qos

and for the bootstrap theme:

cd /tmp
wget http://nut-bolt.nl/files/luci-theme-boo … -1_all.ipk
opkg install luci-theme-bootstrap_1-1_all.ipk

It all seems pretty common sense NOW.  Not sure why it happened in the first place (maybe I rebooted while it was still updating the firmware, though I find it unlikely), but that's how I fixed it.

FYI - you can install the bootstrap theme via the built-in software manager in Luci. It installs the latest version since that theme is officially part of the luci repository now.

I did what exactly moonlightinred did with the same firmware, before rebooting.
Now my WDR3600(v1.3) is bricked.

After I power on the router, all lights are up and then off,  only power light keeps lighting on.
When I plug a LAN port to my PC(with IP 192.168.1.2 Mask 255.255.255.0), the corresponding LAN light is on. However, I cannot ping the router, it says0 "destination host unreachable".

I try to enter the failsafe mode, but it always occurs the above situation, I never see the sys light blinking.
Is is really hard to enter the failsafe mode?

Did any one have the similar problem? Is there any way to debrick without using RS232?

Hi,

I see on the earlier posts that people were using either the 'beta' or 'rc1' versions. Can someone confirm they have used the final AA available ? http://downloads.openwrt.org/attitude_a … actory.bin

Also anyone running the trunk (Barrier Breaker) on WDR3600 ?

Thanks

running trunk r38816 on TP-Link WDR3600 (compiled by myself)

printed information on board says: Rev 1.0

from serial.log

U-Boot 1.1.4 (May  8 2012 - 12:30:02)

Hi
I run Barrier Breaker successfully once. (It seems r3xxxxx, I don't remember exactly, the one is without LuCI)
I upload this firmware by using the original web interface.