If I get another one of these unfortunate devices, would it be possible to restore partion table by flashing parts of firmware from new device, and make a fix for all affected ones?
@BrainSlayer: If I manage to make the bricked one work again, I will be willing to donate it for testing.
I did same mistake with C9 V3, activated jffs2 and got the brick. I can upload new firmware, but it fails to flash, probably broken file system as described in earlier posts. If I understood correctly, reading out file system from working one may help to recover many devices, including mine. I can get another one at next week, if somebody explains how and what I should do with it. But I am a little curious, how it is possible to overwrite flash on "brick" until you can't execute any code?
I still cannot believe there is not a fix for such an expensive router. Lesson learned.
I cannot believe that more bricks are happening after my post saying don't enable JFFS. It would be nice if Brainslayer edits the download post with this warning.
I have only managed to partially fix it by nand dump (involves desoldering), but the wifi tuning data is unique so wifi is dead, gonna use it as small storage server or something unfortunately.
I was able to flash on my Archer C9 v3 without problems, and it is working perfectly. I didnt enable jffs2.
Now that it works and I have access to the box via ssh, is there something I can do to format/repair that jffs2 thing ?
Used BrainSlayer's second factory-to-DDWRT file. Worked fine. Did a 30-30-30 reset, then tried to flash the most recent build. At this point (even after another 30-30-30 reset), all I get is the WPS light.
Is there ANYTHING I can do? I did download the stock formware from TP-Link, and I can get arouns Unix if someone can tell me what I need to connect to and what commands to issue.
Thanks much for any help. :/
-- Chris
EDIT: Got to web flash screen, tried flashing - each time it gets to 9.3%, jumps to 40%, and tells me the firmware is not compatible with the Archer C9 router, despite me downloading the firmware from TP-Link's own pages. Could use help with TFTP method.
EDIT 2: Figured out and did TFTP, didn't work, still staring at a WPS light. I wonder if the current beta build enables jffs2 by default. That would really suck. Is it possible to do a TFTP flash with factory-to-ddwrt?
Mmmm I dont know what you did, but at least for me, I went from the original firmware from tplink to their firmware update page and uploaded factory-to-ddwrt.bin and everything went smoothly. Then on dd-wrt firmware/webpages, there is an option to enable jffs2, which I did NOT enable. Some other options also rely on enabling jffs2, so be careful.
Mmmm I dont know what you did, but at least for me, I went from the original firmware from tplink to their firmware update page and uploaded factory-to-ddwrt.bin and everything went smoothly. Then on dd-wrt firmware/webpages, there is an option to enable jffs2, which I did NOT enable. Some other options also rely on enabling jffs2, so be careful.
Yeah, I dunno what I did either. I got through factory-to-ddwrt with no problems either; everything went to hell in a bucket when I tried to upgrade from THERE to r34311, telling it to go to default settings; at that point all I get is the steady WPS light no matter what. TFTP transfers successfully, I can get the web recovery page at 192.168.0.l (which errors at 40%, consistent with other people who have had the steady WPS light), but nothing takes.
Nutshell, if I don't get an answer soon I think I'm giving up and getting a router that is somewhat more DD-WRT friendly.
Mmmm I dont know what you did, but at least for me, I went from the original firmware from tplink to their firmware update page and uploaded factory-to-ddwrt.bin and everything went smoothly. Then on dd-wrt firmware/webpages, there is an option to enable jffs2, which I did NOT enable. Some other options also rely on enabling jffs2, so be careful.
Yeah, I dunno what I did either. I got through factory-to-ddwrt with no problems either; everything went to hell in a bucket when I tried to upgrade from THERE to r34311, telling it to go to default settings; at that point all I get is the steady WPS light no matter what. TFTP transfers successfully, I can get the web recovery page at 192.168.0.l (which errors at 40%, consistent with other people who have had the steady WPS light), but nothing takes.
Nutshell, if I don't get an answer soon I think I'm giving up and getting a router that is somewhat more DD-WRT friendly.
yepp..i agree that r34311 is probably borked. I was on ddwrt without issues until i upgraded.
yepp..i agree that r34311 is probably borked. I was on ddwrt without issues until i upgraded.
Yeah, I should have left well enough alone, but I wanted to be covered from that recent WPA2 exploit. I just wish I knew how to get out of the bricked state. Like I said, I can TFTP and I can see the target file transfer. It also does not help that the most recent firmware that alleges to be v3 from TP-Link is actually a v4 when you unzip it, so that doesn't leave me feeling great about TP-Link overall. Originally I was looking at an ASUS router; should have stuck with my gut.
yepp..i agree that r34311 is probably borked. I was on ddwrt without issues until i upgraded.
Yeah, I should have left well enough alone, but I wanted to be covered from that recent WPA2 exploit. I just wish I knew how to get out of the bricked state. Like I said, I can TFTP and I can see the target file transfer. It also does not help that the most recent firmware that alleges to be v3 from TP-Link is actually a v4 when you unzip it, so that doesn't leave me feeling great about TP-Link overall. Originally I was looking at an ASUS router; should have stuck with my gut.
I think the v3/v4 firmwares are interchangeable so not much to worry about there. I was looking an ASUS too and decided last minute on the C9 after a price drop. I'm a bit worse off tho, I've killed the serial ports with bad soldering so if no software fix i'll be SOL