RT-AC56U Only able to flash tiny firmware

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jsaiko
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 27 Jul 2019
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2019 1:23    Post subject: RT-AC56U Only able to flash tiny firmware Reply with quote
I have been running dd-wrt on this router for years and needed to upgrade it. I couldn't get anything to flash to it no matter what I tried. Long story short, the only thing I can flash to it is a 7meg openwrt firmware using the recovery software. The factory images from Asus and the newer dd-wrt wont flash. It really feels like this is a file size limitation of some sort. I know this has 128mb of flash so could it be a partitioning issue or something? Any suggestions on where to start? I would be happy to get my old version of ddwrt back on here at this point but I cant find the download.
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jsaiko
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 27 Jul 2019
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2019 1:38    Post subject: Reply with quote
root@OpenWrt:~# cat /proc/mtd
dev: size erasesize name
mtd0: 00080000 00020000 "boot"
mtd1: 00180000 00020000 "nvram"
mtd2: 07e00000 00020000 "firmware"
mtd3: 003fffe4 00020000 "linux"
mtd4: 07a00000 00020000 "ubi"

root@OpenWrt:~# ls /dev/mtd*
/dev/mtd0 /dev/mtd1 /dev/mtd2 /dev/mtd3 /dev/mtd4 /dev/mtdblock0 /dev/mtdblock2 /dev/mtdblock4
/dev/mtd0ro /dev/mtd1ro /dev/mtd2ro /dev/mtd3ro /dev/mtd4ro /dev/mtdblock1 /dev/mtdblock3

root@OpenWrt:~# cd /tmp
root@OpenWrt:/tmp# wget http://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/betas/2019/07-27-2019-r40443/asus-rt-ac56u/asus_rt-ac56u-firmware.trx
Downloading 'http://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/betas/2019/07-27-2019-r40443/asus-rt-ac56u/asus_rt-ac56u-firmware.trx'
Connecting to 185.84.6.100:80
Writing to 'asus_rt-ac56u-firmware.trx'
asus_rt-ac56u-firmwa 100% |*******************************| 27820k 0:00:00 ETA
Download completed (28487680 bytes)

root@OpenWrt:/tmp# mtd write asus_rt-ac56u-firmware.trx linux
Could not open mtd device: linux
Can't open device for writing!
kernel-panic69
DD-WRT Guru


Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 14126
Location: Texas, USA

PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2019 2:04    Post subject: Reply with quote
I think you have to do an mtd erase first, possibly a mtd unlock before that.

https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/mtd

This wiki might need updating, but:

https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Installation#Method_3:_Flashing_with_Command_Line
jsaiko
DD-WRT Novice


Joined: 27 Jul 2019
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2019 3:57    Post subject: Reply with quote
kernel-panic69 wrote:
I think you have to do an mtd erase first, possibly a mtd unlock before that.

https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/mtd

This wiki might need updating, but:

https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Installation#Method_3:_Flashing_with_Command_Line


I'm fairly certain you are correct. Here is what I ended up doing that ultimately worked.

1) Dug into my arduino gears and found a USB to serial adapter and consoled in.

2) Followed these directions here:
https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Serial_Recovery

flash -offset=262144 -noheader 192.168.2.10:RT-AC56U_3.0.0.4_382_51634-g2f3ef81.trx nflash0

3) Panic because router is now stuck in boot loop.

4) Tried the ASUS recovery tool again using the latest dd-wrt image.

Much to my surprise, it worked, rebooted and dropped me to ddwrt login prompt. All is well again.
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