v1.6.1 upgrade bricked two of my routers!

[shahanovski]

I flashed 2 of my routers, TP-Link TL-WR941ND and TL-RW741ND, and both got bricked.

I chose "Preserve settings" while upgrading and I believe that might have bricked them. I'm sure I've used the correct F/W version.

Both are useless now and only Power light comes on after turning them on. No Sys light at all and no way to access via SSH

[pbix]

Recovery mode is your friend. Your routers are not dead, they are just sleeping. Login and run "firstboot" and they should recover.

[shahanovski]

Recovery mode is your friend. Your routers are not dead, they are just sleeping. Login and run "firstboot" and they should recover.

I can't ping them at all. I tried following recovery mode instructions but nothing worked. What I haven't tried is opening and using serial. I don't have the tools/skill to do that.

Do you mind telling me the exact steps? I'd appreciate it.

[tapper]

with my tp-link i had to plug the Ethernet cable in to the wan port to get a ping.

[shahanovski]

with my tp-link i had to plug the Ethernet cable in to the wan port to get a ping.

No ping, nothing. I used static IP and everything. Failsafe doesn't work..

[n0pin]

What button are you pressing to get into failsafe mode?

[pbix]

Instructions are in the Wiki,

http://www.gargoyle-router.com/wiki/dok ... e_recovery

If you be sure to document what step you had trouble at and what happened on all the previous steps.

[DoesItMatter]

I flashed 2 of my routers, TP-Link TL-WR941ND and TL-RW741ND, and both got bricked.

I chose "Preserve settings" while upgrading and I believe that might have bricked them. I'm sure I've used the correct F/W version.

Both are useless now and only Power light comes on after turning them on. No Sys light at all and no way to access via SSH

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr941nd

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr741nd

You will probably have to do Serial recovery for both routers if
all you see is the power light

If you see a power light - the router is not bricked, you just
have a bad firmware flash

If failsafe doesn't work - serial recovery will almost always work

If you cannot serial recover your router - you should not be
flashing 3rd party firmware - you always take the responsibility
that you are flashing the firmware, and if anything goes wrong,
then you have to recover the router yourself.

Read up on those 2 wiki pages for OpenWRT and how to recover
your routers via serial recovery.

[shahanovski]

What button are you pressing to get into failsafe mode?

QSS button

[shahanovski]

I flashed 2 of my routers, TP-Link TL-WR941ND and TL-RW741ND, and both got bricked.

I chose "Preserve settings" while upgrading and I believe that might have bricked them. I'm sure I've used the correct F/W version.

Both are useless now and only Power light comes on after turning them on. No Sys light at all and no way to access via SSH

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr941nd

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr741nd

You will probably have to do Serial recovery for both routers if
all you see is the power light

If you see a power light - the router is not bricked, you just
have a bad firmware flash

If failsafe doesn't work - serial recovery will almost always work

If you cannot serial recover your router - you should not be
flashing 3rd party firmware - you always take the responsibility
that you are flashing the firmware, and if anything goes wrong,
then you have to recover the router yourself.

Read up on those 2 wiki pages for OpenWRT and how to recover
your routers via serial recovery.

Thanks, looks like serial recovery is the only way. I know that I'm the one responsible when flashing 3rd party firmware.. but someone might have had the same experience and perhaps have found a way to recover, would be good to know. And in this case, I won't use "try to preserve settings" ever again..