Netgear XR500 boot loop?

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Sephiroth
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Joined: 22 Aug 2013
Posts: 154

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 20:49    Post subject: Netgear XR500 boot loop? Reply with quote
I own and operate an XR500 and have since it came out. I have a build from 2020-02-17 on it. I just bought another. This is where the problem starts.

The new one will not accept ANY DD-WRT firmware. I have flash a variety of builds from the latest one (yesterday) to 2020-01-03. None work. If I use the GUI it reboots and then the loop (described below) occurs. If I TFTP the factory-to-dd or the dd-wrt-webupgrade it will reboot into the boot loop also. The model is listed as XR500, just like mine. There is no V2/V3 or anything, but nothing is working. I CAN TFTP back to that utterly ridiculous DumaOS, but we do not want that.

The loop is this. After we flash, either from DumaOS upgrade screen or TFTP, the router resets itself. The power light comes on solid orange. The LAN1 light (connected to my PC, nothing else hooked up) comes on white. LAN1 flashes a bit, but I can never ping 192.168.1.1 from my PC, which is static 192.168.1.101/24. Eventually the LAN1 goes out after flashing a while. LAN1 lights up solid now. LAN1 goes out again. USB2 lights up white (nothing in any USB slot) followed instantly by all four LAN lights. The orange power light goes out. All five white lights go out. The cycle now repeats.

What would cause this? Do I have a router somehow locked to DumaOS (DumbassOS) or is something else at play? Can this router use DD-WRT?

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Alozaros
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Joined: 16 Nov 2015
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Location: UK, London, just across the river..

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 21:12    Post subject: Reply with quote
hmm it sounds like you have a bad blocks...how big is the dumaOS file compared to factory ddwrt file...
Im afraid the only way to get more light is to connect it to a serial and than see what happens, but even thou if it turns out bad block issue you wasted your time...anyway...
Your best bet is to return it and get another one...the other option is to get yourself a
second hand R7800, witch is exactly like XR500(XR500 is re-boxed R7800 running dumaOS)...

I don't think there is a DumaOS lock...

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Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 55179 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 55303 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/DoH,Forced DNS,AP Isolation,4VLAN,Ad-Block,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 55363 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/SmartDNS/DoH,AD-Block,Firewall,Forced DNS,x3VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
kernel-panic69
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Location: Texas, USA

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 21:33    Post subject: Reply with quote
Sephiroth wrote:
The new one will not accept ANY DD-WRT firmware. I have flash a variety of builds from the latest one (yesterday) to 2020-01-03. None work

Alozaros wrote:
hmm it sounds like you have a bad blocks...how big is the dumaOS file compared to factory ddwrt file...

Let's see how much sense that idea makes:

https://svn.dd-wrt.com/changeset/44716

If none newer than 44715 will flash, it's *not* bad blocks.

Sephiroth wrote:
What would cause this? Do I have a router somehow locked to DumaOS (DumbassOS) or is something else at play? Can this router use DD-WRT?

It could be that the version of DumaOS you have installed is locking out 3rd party firmware, but I will agree that perhaps one way to figure this out is via serial console. The only way to rule out DumaOS version is to flash the oldest version you can find. Considering you tried TFTP, though, this could be a broken firmware image issue or a hardware revision issue, or just about anything *but* bad blocks.

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Sephiroth
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Joined: 22 Aug 2013
Posts: 154

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 21:45    Post subject: Reply with quote
I assume bad-blocks means areas of NVRAM or wherever the OS image is stored that have failed, such as a bad sector on a mechanical HDD? Just asking for future knowledge.

I cannot crack this open to do a serial connection. If it is bad it is going back. Also not sure how to do a serial connection as I believe it involves soldering and such. This unit was supposed to go in to replace an aging model which also runs DD-WRT but is only capable of about 200Mbps throughput max.

Is it possible to get serial over a LAN port? I know I can do a TTY over LAN in a full-blown Linux install, not sure about this as it is specialized.

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Alozaros
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Location: UK, London, just across the river..

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 21:47    Post subject: Reply with quote
hmm i do remember that one https://svn.dd-wrt.com/changeset/44716 as well few other occasions...when people ware complaining with various units, pass that firmware unable to flash R9000 and if im not wrong there was an R7800 too...to be honest i recently tryed to help a friend with R7000 with same issues, not able to flash...didn't do a serial, but tried one of the recent firmwares...and chagged the CFE too, nothing worked going back to old stock, tftp and ect., only the stock firmware was ok and that was it...

And yep its not a bad idea to go to an old DumaOS version...i wont hurt to try...

Recently, i know of and was envy to a friend that got bargain XR700 deal...he flashed it with the last DumaOS by that time and then moved to DDWRT, by my recommendation...(somewhere around July)...so if there is a new DumaOS, try and older one definitely...
I hope it helps...post the results after..so more people will know...

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Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 55179 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 55303 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/DoH,Forced DNS,AP Isolation,4VLAN,Ad-Block,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 55363 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 55460 Gateway/SmartDNS/DoH,AD-Block,Firewall,Forced DNS,x3VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
Sephiroth
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Joined: 22 Aug 2013
Posts: 154

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 21:58    Post subject: Reply with quote
Already tried the newest DumaOS. I can TFTP that onto it and it works. Still no luck with DD-WRT though. Despite the model being identical to mine, I wonder if they secretly installed something which keeps non-stock firmware from running on it. It doesn't make sense that all these DD-WRT versions work on mine but not this new one.
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kernel-panic69
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2021 22:13    Post subject: Reply with quote
Flash the oldest version of DumaOS available for the rotuer; if it won't flash DD-WRT from the webUI, then the only other way to do anything is via serial if TFTP isn't working - assuming you have your TFTP setup properly.

Keep in mind, browser may come into play flashing via webUI; I use some old ancient browsers a lot of times because of this.

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Sephiroth
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2021 0:29    Post subject: Reply with quote
I can indeed flash from the very latest DumaOS web UI using Firefox and Chrome and even Brave. Also, TFTP works as well. Either way I think the unit is somehow flawed. I will try using an old version of DumaOS for giggles now though.
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kernel-panic69
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2021 0:34    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ok, I totally missed the problem, apparently. So, are you resetting Duma to defaults, flashing, then resetting again or? Something seems amiss, for sure. I have not seen any reports of this on devices already on DD-WRT that I recall. So, you may have to back-track to a much older build of DD-WRT that *will* flash and upgrade. Perhaps this is an image size issue, as Alozaros already alluded to Embarassed Rolling Eyes Shocked
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gin-n-tonic
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2021 20:33    Post subject: Reply with quote
Less than a month ago, I successfully flashed an XR500 to dd-wrt (r47256) following @egc's R7800 guide. Before the flash, the DumaOS F/W was v2.3.2.66.

I had been concerned about the bad blocks issue, so before the upgrade, I enabled telnet access in DumaOS and used Putty to connect. From the command line, "dmseg | grep bad" returned nothing. This made me more confident. And I proceeded to upload the factory-to-ddwrt.img directly from the DumasOS update UI without a problem.

In case of a failed upload, it should go back to the Netgear stock OS. If this happened to me, Plan A was to return and exchange the router for another.

Plan B: I found some discussion of someone with bad blocks on an r7800 trying to install OpenWRT before bad block detection was implemented. See https://forum.openwrt.org/t/r7800-flashing-openwrt-causes-bootloop-bad-block-in-kernel-area/49608/17, in particular the comments by @mk24 and @hnyman. It seemed like they determined the number of bad blocks and edited the factory.img file to change the spacing between the kernel and rootfs so that rootfs would written at the correct location.
hebeda
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2022 17:50    Post subject: Reply with quote
i was also unlucky enough to get a XR500 which wasnt willing to take any DD-WRT Firmware but all versions of DumaOS ...

Brainslayer was so kind and provided a working solution , a firmware which ignores any flash errors ...

so far my device seems stable for all basic functions and wireguard vpn ....

i attached the firmware ... use at your own risk ... you need to be registered in the forum to see the download
IONK
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:15    Post subject: Reply with quote
hebeda wrote:
Brainslayer was so kind and provided a working solution , a firmware which ignores any flash errors ...

so far my device seems stable for all basic functions and wireguard vpn ....

i attached the firmware ... use at your own risk ... you need to be registered in the forum to see the download
After flashing this special version to convert from DumaOS to DD-WRT, is it ok to flash newer normal versions?
(I'm asking for future references)

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blkt
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:49    Post subject: Reply with quote
It is not about DumaOS stock firmware, but routers with hardware nand issues, bad blocks, defective sectors etc.

https://svn.dd-wrt.com/?from=Dec+19%2C+2022&daysback=1&changeset=on

https://svn.dd-wrt.com/log?rev=51045&stop_rev=51042


Last edited by blkt on Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:53; edited 1 time in total
IONK
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:53    Post subject: Reply with quote
blkt wrote:
It is not about DumaOS at all but routers with hardware nand issues, bad blocks, defective sectors etc.
Thanks. Let me rephrase my question:
hebeda wrote:
Brainslayer was so kind and provided a working solution , a firmware which ignores any flash errors ...

so far my device seems stable for all basic functions and wireguard vpn ....

i attached the firmware ... use at your own risk ... you need to be registered in the forum to see the download
After flashing this special version to convert XR500 with bad blocks from stock FW to DD-WRT, is it ok to flash newer normal versions?
(I'm asking for future references)

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blkt
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:56    Post subject: Reply with quote
It is a work in progress, also you may have noticed r51043 has been removed from public servers.

I have no idea what you mean to say about normal versions as this is to address hardware defects.
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