Another Archer C7 Issue

[r5e]

Apologies if this has already been dealt with in this thread - Bricked my Archer C7. I have read though it all and not sure if I have one of the new flash chips as my symptoms seemed a little different to those in that thread. The other thread seems to mention this is a US firmware issue, so I wasn’t sure if I’d need to do all the flushing with DD-WRT firmware it mentions.

On the weekend, I purchased a new TP-Link Archer C7 v2, explicitly for running Gargoyle on (from an Australian retailer). I used gargoyle_1.8.1-ar71xx-generic-archer-c7-v2-squashfs-factory.bin and simply upgraded from the existing TPLink firmware’s upgrade menu. Had some initial issues connecting from the same laptop I’d flashed it from. I’d get the webpage, but it would not be displaying images, just the text & buttons. Entering the password and clicking the login button would do nothing. I tried 3 different browsers, firewall & AV off etc, but still got the same result. I could SSH OK and tried running firstboot, resetting and trying again, but after no change, I gave up for the night.

The next morning, I decided to try from a different laptop and it worked perfectly. I changed the IP address to match my existing setup and swapped my router out with the new one. Things seemed to be OK, so I setup the wifi to match my old setup and all the other clients in my house connected OK and accessed the web just fine. I then tried to access the config from any of the other devices, but had the same problems as with the original laptop. Again, I removed AV, firewalls, restarted, ipconfig/renew/flushdns etc, used 4 different browsers, but no luck. Then the original laptop that WAS working that I’d set it up from in the morning also started to misbehave in the web interface. I could log in, but it was very slow and would not show any config. I restarted the router several times as well, but no improvement.
I even tried to upgrade by flashing with 1.9 from the web interface, but the upon browsing to the file and clicking the button, nothing happened.
Via SSH, I entered firstboot

• root@Gargoyle:~# firstboot
  This will erase all settings and remove any installed packages. Are you sure? [N/y]
  y
  /dev/mtdblock3 is mounted as /overlay, only erasing files
  root@Gargoyle:~#

It returned to the prompt within just seconds.

I power cycled the box and it had reverted back to the original IP again. Now I’m stuck with the same problem. It seems that none of my PCs can get the web interface properly. They all show just the text, but no images and clicking the “login” button does nothing.

What do I do? Do I have to TFTP the image over? Could there have been a problem with the image the first time? Should I try the 1.9 image? (I have no interest in trying to go back to TPLink firmware, I only bought this to run Gargoyle). What are my options? (I can still SSH to it). Do I need to try Lantis’s NewChipPatch or do I try ispyisail’s link?

[Lantis]

If it's booting it's not a chip issue.
However, definitely try the my image there. It should get you up and running.
The UI not loading properly does sound suspiciously like a browser issue, but across several devices? Not likely.

Report back from 1.9.X and we will go from there.

[r5e]

Thanks Lantis.
I downloaded your 1.9.x image, SCPed it to the router (renamed it just for simplicity's sake). Then via SSH

Code: Select all

mtd -r write /tmp/gargoyle.bin firmware

It took a couple of minutes, then reported "rebooting". I was able to access the web interface and confirm it's 1.9 now! A bit more config & testing to do now to get it into production, but it's looking more hopeful now. Thanks for your work on this and your quick answers in here.