Linksys 32x reflashed itself from Garogoyle 1.12 back to factory firmware

[agrohe21]

I woke up on Jan 1 and it seems that my gargoyle router reflashed itself back to factory firmware from Gargoyle. I am not sure how that could have happened or is this an indicator I have been hacked?
On the base firmeware DHCP is not working and I need to do static IPs to get any internet connections.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

[Lantis]

If you’ve only ever flashed 1.12 once and never flashed anything else, the stock firmware will still be on the secondary partition.

The secondary partition loads in case of a failure to boot 3x in a row, which can be triggered by power outages or a nasty crash.

You can trigger it to flip back to your old install again using the same trick.
https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt_ac_ ... wer_switch


By the way, 1.12 is very out of date with many security flaws. Your next move should be to upgrade to 1.15. As you can’t preserve your settings when doing so, this presents a good opportunity.

[agrohe21]

thanks for that guidance. I only see 1.13 as experimental and no 1.15 for Marvel. Is that near a release?

Will advise on reverting to 1.12 with those instructions

[Lantis]

viewtopic.php?t=17921

[agrohe21]

I tried to get 1.13 to install but I cannot get past the stock firmware. I tried both the power button and ssh techniques. Seems I cannot get past the stock firmware. Not sure if it can be locked somehow? or the other partiton is somehow corrupted?

[Lantis]

It’s likely a timing problem. You have to get the switch off point right.
Check out 1:45 in this video for a demonstration.
https://youtu.be/XhITSo2ymYA?si=Fozd-06-5n46xGYI

If you still can’t get it to work, then you are left with just flashing a new version.

[agrohe21]

I have also tried that but it will not take. I upload the file in UI but the old firmware loads. very odd.

[agrohe21]

Hoping you can help. At this point, I can only boot into stock firmware on partition 2. When in that partition, I upload the gargoyle firmware but it does not take or error out and the stock firmware loads again on partition 2.

I tried to go to boot_part 1 but when I do that the router does not seem to boot and/or I cannot connect with laptop and network cable.
https://openwrt.org/toh/linksys/wrt_ac_series#ssh

Is there a way to copy gargoyle image onto one of the boot partitions and/or trigger the firmware update from ssh?

[Lantis]

Flash the OEM image again so that you have it working on both partitions.
Then try to flash Gargoyle.

If it won’t take perhaps try OpenWrt and then sysupgrade back to Gargoyle.
Also try different versions newer and older as perhaps the version checking in the OEM firmware has changed.

[agrohe21]

thanks for suggestions. Will try different versions of gargoyle or wrt then gargoyle.

How would I get stock firmware back on partition 1? Once I switch over to that via ssh or power button, it wont respond. Mabye that partiion is corrupted?

At this stage, I am not trying to save anything just get my gargoyle back. I hate stock firmware!