Hi,
I recently bought this router and tried to flash several images in several ways: lede, stock and openwrt, via web UI and via tftp and providing the image as recovery.bin. The router complains "Incorrect file". Since it seems that I haven't any other options I decide to run the router with its stock image. Before I installed the router on the roof, I made some hardware modifications, so now I can remotely perform a factory reset and its serial console is available via a serial device server. I mention that, because it means that the device is absolutely beyond warranty with all that soldering!
This morning I give it another try and for any reason I was able to first install the current stock image to the router and then install a self built openwrt image both flashed via the routers web UI. I did not really care about the image I flashed and how it was build. And because their was no web UI anymore (I checked port 80 with netstat) I used the serial console to flash an image which I previosly copied with scp to that device. Since it is a sunny day and things works like a charm, I skipped thinking and performed sysupdate -F lede-something.bin.
Now when I boot the router, it outputs:
TP-LINK SafeLoader (Build time: Jun 12 2015 - 09:49:53)
CPU: 560MHz AHB: 225MHz DDR: 64MB
Performing LED check.. PASS
Press CTRL+B to enter SafeLoader: 1
Flash Manufacturer: Unknown(0xc8)
Flash Device ID: Unknown(0x4017)
Data flash init failed.
open user-config failed.
open user-config failed.
enet0 port4 up
TFTP server address is 192.168.0.100; our address is 192.168.0.254
Get filename 'recovery.bin'.
Retry count exceeded; starting again
enet1 port3 up
TFTP server address is 192.168.0.100; our address is 192.168.0.254
Get filename 'recovery.bin'.
#################################################################
################################
Done.
Bytes transferred = 4936747, 928 Kbytes/sec
Incorrect File.
Writting error.
##Warning: File is unidentiable. Try downloading
TFTP server address is 192.168.0.100; our address is 192.168.0.254
Get filename 'vmlinuz'.
Retry count exceeded; starting again
TFTP server address is 192.168.0.100; our address is 192.168.0.254
Get filename 'vmlinuz'.
#################################################################
########
Done.
Bytes transferred = 3732560, 927 Kbytes/sec
Skipping non LOAD program header (type 0x70000003)
Allocated memory for elf segment ok: addr: 0x806b3050, size 0x88df94
Loading .text @ 0x806b3050 (128 bytes)
Loading .text.error @ 0x806b30d0 (8 bytes)
Loading .text.malloc @ 0x806b30d8 (104 bytes)
Loading .text.xz_crc32 @ 0x806b3140 (68 bytes)
Loading .text.dec_vli @ 0x806b3184 (260 bytes)
Loading .text.index_update @ 0x806b3288 (96 bytes)
Loading .text.crc32_validate @ 0x806b32e8 (108 bytes)
Loading .text.lzma_len @ 0x806b3354 (588 bytes)
Loading .text.fill_temp @ 0x806b35a0 (156 bytes)
Loading .text.free.isra.0 @ 0x806b363c (44 bytes)
Loading .text.xz_dec_end @ 0x806b3668 (80 bytes)
Loading .text.dict_repeat.part.1 @ 0x806b36b8 (152 bytes)
Loading .text.xz_dec_reset @ 0x806b3750 (76 bytes)
Loading .text.lzma_main @ 0x806b379c (2944 bytes)
Loading .text.__stack_chk_guard_setup @ 0x806b431c (20 bytes)
Loading .text.__stack_chk_fail @ 0x806b4330 (8 bytes)
Loading .text.decompress_kernel @ 0x806b4338 (4688 bytes)
Loading .text.memcpy @ 0x806b5588 (44 bytes)
Loading .text.memset @ 0x806b55b4 (40 bytes)
Loading .text.memmove @ 0x806b55dc (72 bytes)
Loading .text.__ashldi3 @ 0x806b5624 (72 bytes)
Loading .text.startup.main @ 0x806b566c (8 bytes)
Loading .MIPS.abiflags @ 0x806b5678 (24 bytes)
Loading .rodata.str1.4 @ 0x806b5690 (8 bytes)
Loading .rodata.decompress_kernel @ 0x806b5698 (108 bytes)
Loading ___ksymtab+__ashldi3 @ 0x806b5704 (8 bytes)
Loading __ksymtab_strings+__ashldi3 @ 0x806b570c (10 bytes)
Loading .data @ 0x806b5720 (3708080 bytes)
Clearing .bss @ 0x80b3ebd0 (4202496 bytes)
Clearing .bss.__stack_chk_guard @ 0x80f40bd0 (4 bytes)
Clearing .bss.xz_crc32_table @ 0x80f40bd4 (1024 bytes)
Clearing .bss.malloc_count @ 0x80f40fd4 (4 bytes)
Clearing .bss.malloc_ptr @ 0x80f40fd8 (4 bytes)
Clearing .bss.free_mem_end_ptr @ 0x80f40fdc (4 bytes)
Clearing .bss.free_mem_ptr @ 0x80f40fe0 (4 bytes)
Starting kernel
[ 0.000000] Linux version 4.4.14 (hinerk@v22016124142142173.bestsrv.de) (gcc version 5.3.0 (OpenWrt GCC 5.3.0 50104) ) #4 Thu Mar 16 14:53:16 UTC 2017
[ 0.000000] bootconsole [early0] enabled
[ 0.000000] CPU0 revision is: 0001974c (MIPS 74Kc)
[ 0.000000] SoC: Atheros AR9344 rev 2
[ 0.000000] Determined physical RAM map:
[ 0.000000] memory: 04000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
[ 0.000000] Initrd not found or empty - disabling initrd
[ 0.000000] No valid device tree found, continuing without
[ 0.000000] Zone ranges:
[ 0.000000] Normal [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x0000000003ffffff]
[ 0.000000] Movable zone start for each node
[ 0.000000] Early memory node ranges
[ 0.000000] node 0: [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x0000000003ffffff]
[ 0.000000] Initmem setup node 0 [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x0000000003ffffff]
[ 0.000000] Primary instruction cache 64kB, VIPT, 4-way, linesize 32 bytes.
[ 0.000000] Primary data cache 32kB, 4-way, VIPT, cache aliases, linesize 32 bytes
[ 0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on. Total pages: 16256
[ 0.000000] Kernel command line: rootfstype=squashfs,jffs2 noinitrd
[ 0.000000] PID hash table entries: 256 (order: -2, 1024 bytes)
[ 0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
[ 0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
[ 0.000000] Writing ErrCtl register=00000000
[ 0.000000] Readback ErrCtl register=00000000
[ 0.000000] Memory: 57796K/65536K available (2989K kernel code, 175K rwdata, 756K rodata, 2600K init, 200K bss, 7740K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
[ 0.000000] SLUB: HWalign=32, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
[ 0.000000] NR_IRQS:51
[ 0.000000] Clocks: CPU:560.000MHz, DDR:450.000MHz, AHB:225.000MHz, Ref:40.000MHz
[ 0.000000] clocksource: MIPS: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 6825930166 ns
[ 0.000009] sched_clock: 32 bits at 280MHz, resolution 3ns, wraps every 7669584382ns
[ 0.009052] Calibrating delay loop... 278.93 BogoMIPS (lpj=1394688)
[ 0.082153] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
[ 0.087654] Mount-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[ 0.095347] Mountpoint-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[ 0.106460] clocksource: jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 19112604462750000 ns
[ 0.118691] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[ 0.125443] MIPS: machine is Generic AR71XX/AR724X/AR913X based board
[ 0.146123] clocksource: Switched to clocksource MIPS
[ 0.153533] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[ 0.159529] TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[ 0.167693] TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[ 0.175085] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024)
[ 0.182584] UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[ 0.189419] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[ 0.197032] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[ 3.221593] futex hash table entries: 256 (order: -1, 3072 bytes)
[ 3.243811] squashfs: version 4.0 (2009/01/31) Phillip Lougher
[ 3.250660] jffs2: version 2.2 (NAND) (SUMMARY) (LZMA) (RTIME) (CMODE_PRIORITY) (c) 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
[ 3.264985] io scheduler noop registered
[ 3.269609] io scheduler deadline registered (default)
[ 3.275812] Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 1 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
[ 3.283725] console [ttyS0] disabled
[ 3.307987] serial8250.0: ttyS0 at MMIO 0x18020000 (irq = 11, base_baud = 2500000) is a 16550A
Because the boot interrups in previous trials with non successfully fetching a vmlinuz image via tftp, I provide this image, I took from my build experiment. Obviously something is booting but serial console disappears and a tcpdump doesn't give me any clue how I could access the router. I rebuild the image with appending 'ttyS1::respawn:/bin/ash -c /bin/login' to any inittab I found in the build environment, but I guess this will have no influence to the vmlinuz file.
Does someone have any suggestions, what I could try to bring the device in a bit more useful state? Thank you!
PS: I can skip the boot by pressing ctrl+B, which makes the router prompting for a password, I tried admin, 5up and a bunch of others but it doesn't seem to login to anything.