[LEDE-DEV] TP-Link Archer C7 boot loop

[Jochen Demmer]

Thank you everybody,

I've been trying for 2 hours straight to unbrick via serial, using a 
prolific pl2303 adapter but without success.

I tried screen, picocom and minicom. I tried Apple's terminal emulator 
and iTerm2. Got me a Mac and then Linux. Desperate as I am also 
connected another C7.
I tried like a whole bunch of different settings but no matter what, I 
get gibberish characters.

./picocom /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 115200 -y n -d 8 -p 1

These are the settings I think they should be set to, but it just won't 
work.
Actually only RX and TX are connected, because when I connect GND the 
serial connection freezes and let USB subsystem crash. Connecting VCC 
doesn't seem like a good idea, too.
Any hints?

Jochen

On 2016-08-22 11:29, Kevin Darbyshire-Bryant wrote:
> On 20/08/16 22:35, Jochen Demmer wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> yesterday I bricked an Archer C7 v2 by installing some homebrew 
>> (buildroot) lede firmware.
> 
> I've only once encountered an issue which I can only assume was a bad
> flash.  It's a few months ago so memory is vague.  The serial console
> was booting linux but it was reporting something about corrupt
> filesystem markers & couldn't mount filesystems.  Even using the tftp
> recovery method to re-install factory firmware didn't work...the
> factory firmware was having similar partition table issues.  I
> genuinely thought I'd bricked it and purchased a replacement that very
> morning...with the replacement up & running I then set about seeing
> what I could do with the borked unit.  Following the 'serial unbrick'
> instructions at https://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr7500 I was
> able to unbrick it and it's been fine ever since... I'm using it as an
> additional access point for downstairs in the house, the new one is
> upstairs.
> 
> 
>        Recovery using serial connection
> 
> Connect to your router via serial, power it up, then type "tpl" until
> the boot process is halted and you should be at the console. Set up a
> TFTP server with your firmware at 192.168.1.100, then run the
> following commands (for v2 only):
> 
> tftp 0x81000000 [name of your firmware file].bin
> erase 0x9f020000 +f80000
> cp.b 0x81000000 0x9f020000 0xf80000
> reset
> 
> 
> I'm convinced it was the 'erase' command that cleared out some bad
> data in the flash.  Like I said, the unit has been absolutely rock
> solid ever since.
> 
> Kevin
> 
> 
> 
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