I bricked my wrt54gl and can't seem to fix it...

Ok so here's what happened:

I upgraded the firmware on my wrt54gl to freifunk as suggested on jawug, and that worked fine, then I tried to load a firmware called alchemy, but I got a page cannot be displayed error followed by a flashing power button that wouldn't go away.

Eventually I got the courage to try the pin 15 and 16 shorting out, and this seemed to work to I tftp'd the freifunk build back.

Now all the right light are on, netstumbler can pick up the router, which now has an ssid called OpenWrt, but I can't seem to ping it anymore

Please tell me there's an expert here that can help me fix this...

Thanks,

Patrick

Patrick, silly question but can't you reach it on 192.168.1.1 ?

Ok i've done this before
To recover you gotta use the built-in safe mode.

Gimme a few minutes, i need to find the instructions to recover it again.
--------
Ok, to get into failsafe mode, pull the power and push it back in again. As soon as the DMZ light flashes hit the reset button for about 2 seconds. The dmz light will now flash 3times every second.

You should now be able to connect to your ap on 192.168.1.1 Logon, and try to find out what the issue is with the new firmware. Most often its a result of nvram values from a previous install thats totally messing with the new firmware. To clear it run "mtd -r erase nvram".

If that doesnt work for you then use use tftp and send a openwrt image ( micro ) to the device. I prefer using tftp from linux, cause then you dont have to wait for that super tiny window where tftp is active. The linux tftp is fast enough to catch it.

Lets us know what you get right.

Hi,

Ryder, before I tried Obelix's fix I couldn't access it on 1.1 but since I did I can, however I can't seem to tftp new firmware accross, I keep getting "Timeout occurred" when I try.

Is there another way to do it?

Thanks,

Patrick

You have to be EXTREMELY quick when uploading the new tftp image - I think you only get a second to send it the new file... am trying to find a howto guide for you....

To tftp you gotta jump through some hoops. During bootup the WaRT starts up a tftp server. Its only up for about a second and its difficult to catch it, especially using windows.

On Linux use the atftp command as follows

atftp
tftp> connect 192.168.1.1
tftp> mode octet
tftp> trace
tftp> timeout 60
tftp> put openwrt-xxx-x.x-xxx.bin

Or use the command-line:
atftp --trace --option "timeout 60" --option "mode octet" --put --local-file openwrt-xxx-x.x-xxx.bin 192.168.1.1

Once youve done that, reboot your WaRT. The atftp program continually retries the send ( for 60 seconds ).

Once the image is sent the WaRT will reboot. Leave it alone for about 5 minutes so that it can finish its firstboot. After that you should be able to access it in normal mode on 192.168.1.1

These instructions can also be found on www.openwrt.org

Follow the above instructions, ie: start the upload
pull the power
press and hold the reset button
apply power (you should still be holding the reset button)
wait a few seconds until the tftp starts
you can let go of the button

That works quite nicely

Hmm, this is so tough! At the moment the only thing that works is fail safe mode. Whenever I try to boot without hitting the reset button the router pretty much does nothing which means I can't tftp anything accross.

I can telnet into the router, is that of any use?

Thanks again you guys

ok - Have you cleared the nvram ? "mtd -r erase nvram"
Also, you had freifunk on there, so remove any ff* nvram values with "nvram erase <variable>"

Once youre done removing them all do a "nvram commit" and then a reboot

Obelix said:

ok - Have you cleared the nvram ? "mtd -r erase nvram"
Also, you had freifunk on there, so remove any ff* nvram values with "nvram erase <variable>"

Once youre done removing them all do a "nvram commit" and then a reboot

Click to expand...

Hi,

mtd -r erase nvram gave me a "no valid command given". I'm a bit of a newbie so excuse me if I'm missing something obvious...?

Ok I think I finally have something! It looks like I managed to reset enough and do some other weird stuff, I can't even remember, but in the end I finally managed to tftp a version of dd-wrt onto it!

Im so happy, even though I don't have much else working, at least the router is saved!

Thanks so much for the help guys

ok, dd-wrt and freifunk are in the same boat. Theyre both based in openwrt.

If you can get to the web interface of dd-wrt then you should be on on your way. Its still a good idea to learn how the thing works from the command line though. Especially setting the nvram variables and which ones do what exactly.

Check both the openwrt site and the dd-wrt site for explanations. The default config for instance is to have the wireless lan bridged onto the local lan. If youre going to join a network like jawug, you want to change that bridge config. I yanked eth1 ( wifi ) out of the bridge and put it on a subnet of its own. Thats all done by nvram commands. You then assign ip,subnet, default gw to the eth1 interface's nvram variables (wl0_*).

Here is mine, as an example:
root@BBJ:~# nvram show | grep wl0
size: 1672 bytes (31096 left)
wl0_akm=open
wl0_infra=1
wl0_ifname=eth1
wl0_mode=sta
wl0_gmode=2
wl0_ssid=WindNet1
wl0id=0x4320
wl0_closed=0
wl0gpio2=0
wl0gpio3=0
wl0_wep=disabled
wl0_radio=1
wl0_channel=6
root@BBJ:~#

and just for good measure, my lan side's settings as well

root@BBJ:~# nvram show | grep lan
size: 1672 bytes (31096 left)
lan_gateway=172.21.1.1
vlan0ports=3 2 1 0 5*
lan_netmask=255.255.255.0
lan_ifnames=vlan0
lan_dns=10.0.0.1
lan_ipaddr=172.21.1.2
lan_proto=static
vlan1hwname=et0
vlan1ports=4 5
lan_ifname=vlan0
wan_ifname=vlan1
vlan0hwname=et0
root@BBJ:~#

Most of this should be settable via the web interface of dd-wrt, but its always a good idea to go and check what the web interface did for a particular setting.

Just another thing, setting the password for root, also automagically disables telnet and enables ssh. If you dont have a ssh client yet, get a copy of putty.

Enjoy
BBJ

Thanks for that Obelix, looks decent. Just one question now...

How can I make sure I don't end up with a brick again???

Cheers,

Patrick

Obelix said:

Ok i've done this before
To recover you gotta use the built-in safe mode.

Gimme a few minutes, i need to find the instructions to recover it again.
--------
Ok, to get into failsafe mode, pull the power and push it back in again. As soon as the DMZ light flashes hit the reset button for about 2 seconds. The dmz light will now flash 3times every second.

You should now be able to connect to your ap on 192.168.1.1 Logon, and try to find out what the issue is with the new firmware. Most often its a result of nvram values from a previous install thats totally messing with the new firmware. To clear it run "mtd -r erase nvram".

If that doesnt work for you then use use tftp and send a openwrt image ( micro ) to the device. I prefer using tftp from linux, cause then you dont have to wait for that super tiny window where tftp is active. The linux tftp is fast enough to catch it.

Lets us know what you get right.

Click to expand...

Thanx Obelix, i tried different de-bricking methods, and forgot about the dmz 2nd reset button trick /beer

That is some pretty impressive thread necro straight into spam.
It would almost be a shame to rbp it after such an epic bump..