Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 13:17 Post subject: EA6900 stuck on waiting
I tried to restore stock CFE that i backedup and it is attached below and flash linksys firmware but the router stuck on waiting and nothing is happening to setup the router .I did change the mac address to my router but i could not change the password .
i tried to read all posts in this forum but nothing is working .
can someone provide the linksys stock CFE and tell me how to restore EA6900 v1.1 to stock firmware?
thank
stock-cfe.bin
Description:
This is the stock CFE i used before i changed MAC but i could not change pass
Joined: 10 Oct 2014 Posts: 101 Location: 60th parallel N.
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 19:42 Post subject:
I do not know in what state your ea6900 is now or what CFE you had in there.
Basically the info in the below two links should describe everything that is needed to load any compatible firmware and / or de-brick the router.
Best is if you had the custom CFE with a working XVT CFE miniWeb Server.
Thing is to turn of the firewall and apply the firmware update as soon as the miniweb GUI comes up,
and that happens about the same time the router responds to the continuous ping at 192.168.1.1.
May need to try with both IE and Firefox, IE seemed to work better.
I use Xvortex CFE in my unit. _________________ EA6900 v3.0-r52217 std ░ WZR-HP-AG300H-DD-WRT v3.0-r52095 std ░ WHR3-G54 v3.0-r29193 mini ░ WLI-TX4-G54HP ░ WBMR-HP-GNV2 ░ TL-MR3420v²
i am able to flash and write any CFE but when i am on stock CFE and stock firmware setup, it keeps stuck on waiting .
i did follow both thread you gave me and i was successful in flashing Xvortex CFE.
i kinda lost hope in restoring this unit and the thread is very long to read again .
can you tell me which stock CFE is valid. When i edit my stock CFE backup that i made according to the forum you posted ,i can only change MAC but not the password .i am thinking my stock CFE is bad .
Joined: 10 Oct 2014 Posts: 101 Location: 60th parallel N.
Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 19:48 Post subject:
Not sure why one would use the stock CFE, nothing good comes out of it.
Also cannot not see why you would edit the MAC address in your stock CFE?
One is supposed to edit the custom CFE to adapt your stock MACs, then upload it.
cybrnooks guide works to the point.
Passwords are default, in both Linksys and dd-wrt, after a hard reset.
If you have the Xvortex CFE, with your altered MAC addresses(based on sticker info on base) from the stock CFE,
then upload any suitable dd-wrt firmware via the XVT CFE miniWeb Server. _________________ EA6900 v3.0-r52217 std ░ WZR-HP-AG300H-DD-WRT v3.0-r52095 std ░ WHR3-G54 v3.0-r29193 mini ░ WLI-TX4-G54HP ░ WBMR-HP-GNV2 ░ TL-MR3420v²
i had to change the stock CFE Mac to the address on my router because when i opened it with vortex CFE editors ,the Mac address is 00:90:4C:0F:F0:01 and password is 00000000.
i had to change the stock CFE Mac to the address on my router because when i opened it with vortex CFE editors ,the Mac address is 00:90:4C:0F:F0:01 and password is 00000000.
i have a feeling that my stock Cfe is corrupted
In my guide I have users do a complete dump of NVRAM as soon as they flash DD-WRT from stock for reasons like this.
I think the problem you are having is corrupted/conflicting NVRAM values. The values in the stock CFE are basically "recovery" values only. So it won't contain personal info like password and your real MAC address, those are stored only in NVRAM. The stock CFE image is a generic image and ALL ea6900's will contain the same values as yours.
I think your best bet if you want to return to stock cfe (really really don't know why) is to flash the custom CFE. Get on a custom firmware (Like DD-WRT).
THEN, very carefully, take the stock NVRAM dump that is provided in the ea6900 thread and start substituting your correct values in. You will need to basically manually insert all your stock NVRAM values back into NVRAM. The hard part here is nobody knows what values are going to be stock and what values are the DD-WRT values, someone smarter will have to tell you.
Then, flash your stock CFE (still in the same ssh session), then flash your stock firmware x 2 (still in the same ssh session).
Then reboot
Your stock firmware should then read the correct "stock" values from NVRAM on first boot and load correctly.
It's an ass backwards approach, but since we don't have a back to stock firmware like the Netgear R7000 does, returning to stock on the ea6900 is tricky, and, honestly, I have never done it or wanted to. (They are the same platform, but linksys does the dual partition for recovery. ASUS custom CFE removes this. Then flashing back tries to put it back....ick)
i first flashed a linksys to dd-wrt base firmware to enable ssh and telnet then i used the two command below to back up my cfe and nvram:
nvram show >> nvram_dump.txt (backs up NVRAM to nvram_dump.txt)
dd if=/dev/mtd0 of=/tmp/root/stock-cfe.bin (backs up CFE to stock-cfe.bin file)
Can i just restore the nvram_dump.txt i have ?
how do i restore both nvram and cfe ? and which one should i do first ?
The best (half assed) idea I can come up with is based on theory here (so no guarantee's you won't end up with a brick). I am assuming the initial DD-WRT image BrainSlayer released for this router at the very beginning of the ea6900 thread (the "special small" build) is retaining the stock Linksys values, as well as adding some DD-WRT ones. As, after all, that's what brainslayer was after when he posted it, the stock linksys values.
So, granted you never had DD-WRT on the router prior to flashing the custom CFE while following my guide.
--Very important, if you flashed DD-WRT prior and then, later, down the road decided to use my guide to flash CFE and backup NVRAM values, there is no good return as you would have already lost the stock values from the initial flash--
With that said, and you started with a fresh ea6900 on stock firmware/cfe, and my guide was your first point, then I THINK your stock nvram backup will have the default values in it.
So, you "should" be able to log into your router (ssh) while on DD-WRT (I would use BS initial), and flash your nvram values back and flash stock bootloader and firmware.
This is all theory, and I am not interested in testing it as I think returning to stock is a waste of time. But I would:
1. Upload all three items to /tmp (or anywhere) on the router. (Stock firmware image, stock CFE, backup of NVRAM originals)
2. a. Open NVRAM backup and append "nvram set" in front of every value, then run the NVRAM backup as a script (.sh)
- This should put all the mixed values back into place -
(no reboot yet)
or
2. b. Dump another NVRAM backup while on BS's initial build (after clearing NVRAM). Then compare your two files using diff:
and look for the difference in NVRAM values, should be the stock missing values. Take those and set them in your NVRAM manually (no reboot yet)
3. Flash stock CFE back (no reboot yet)
4. Flash stock firmware back x 2 to try and hit both partitions (reboot)
This "should", in theory, get you on the stock bootloader, stock firmware, and a garbage mess of mixed NVRAM values of stock and DD-WRT. If the router boots after this, you should be able to then reset the router from webgui to try and purge out the funky values. (1. No guarantee to boot, 2. be careful for your username/password with DD-WRT. Maybe you want to manually define in NVRAM while you are modifying it prior to reboot. Else after reboot do a hard reset if you get stuck trying to log in)
Good luck, and google will be your friend if you decided to try the above and have questions about "what is a script and how do I make it", or "how do I append values".
FWIW, I would not do this, DD-WRT and XVortex or Tomato are worlds better. There is a lot of risk, with no reward. Except you coming back and complaining router sucks or firmware doesn't work etc... XVortex FWIW is rock solid with custom CFE. I use 54_2 build
As far as i know Nvram values are ket in system unless you reset and I always reset whenever I install a new firmware.
I had DD-wrt installed in the past using the stock CFE so my unit is not virgin. I was able to go back to stock by just flashing the stock firmware and doing reset by pressing the reset button after flashing and my router will reboot with linksys firmware.
I am currently on Kong build and custom CFE and my unit runs well but i am trying to learn.
the only Nvram scripts i found so far was for the asus routers and currently trying to figure out how to run them on my system.
As far as i know Nvram values are ket in system unless you reset and I always reset whenever I install a new firmware.
I had DD-wrt installed in the past using the stock CFE so my unit is not virgin. I was able to go back to stock by just flashing the stock firmware and doing reset by pressing the reset button after flashing and my router will reboot with linksys firmware.
I am currently on Kong build and custom CFE and my unit runs well but i am trying to learn.
the only Nvram scripts i found so far was for the asus routers and currently trying to figure out how to run them on my system.
I would advise against going back to stock, I still don't know why you want to, I don't think you answered.
NVRAM is just that, non-volatile memory. The values in NVRAM are retained after a reboot. However, during a "hard" reset, some of the values are wiped and potentially re-loaded, but not all.
Take for example, your head popped (like the jet.com commercials ) when you thought your stock CFE was corrupted because the MAC didn't match. That's because your MAC isn't loaded from scratch on a hard reset, it is a persistent NVRAM value as are some others. So don't assume that when you do a hard reset that ALL values are being loaded fresh again (or can be reloaded correctly if you wipe it).
But that is the tricky part with opensource firmware and custom bootloaders etc... You easily can arrive in a situation where you mistakenly load a wrong MAC in the custom bootloader, OR, you really do wipe out the entire NVRAM causing a re-load, only to be greeted with a generic MAC that came from recovery bootloader etc. You need to be careful with this stuff, and NVRAM wipes. You ARE playing with things that can destroy your device, or at least render it unusable to which you will have no recourse except for pulling out a serial cable and reprogramming.
If you still want to go to stock, then my recommendation (since you were on DD-WRT with stock cfe for some time, and you seem to have likely hard reset a few times), you can go to the "is the ea6900 supported" thread. In the first few pages Fractal does an NVRAM dump and uploads it for BrainSlayer. You can download this and adapt in your unique values and try my steps above. The trick to all this working is crossing our fingers that the stock firmware finds the missing values not present in DD-WRT in the "mixed" values from a backup or from Fractal and allows you to fully log in. At which time you could do a restore/rest in the stock firmware and it should wipe out the erroneous (DD-WRT) NVRAM values and just keep what it knows.
I would advise against going back to stock, I still don't know why you want to, I don't think you answered.
when I decided to change stock CFE i thought i can go back whenever i decided since i did the backup as in your instruction, but i was surprised it did not. since then, i decided to learn and know what happened. I decided to try and go back to stock and thought if i am successful, other people will benefit from my trials. I also bought a usb to TTL in-case i need to go to serial recovery and maybe later use a jtag if possible which i think is the best and fastest method if available.
After all we are learning and i want to thank you for helping out
) when you thought your stock CFE was corrupted because the MAC didn't match. That's because your MAC isn't loaded from scratch on a hard reset, it is a persistent NVRAM value 
as are some others. So don't assume that when you do a hard reset that ALL values are being loaded fresh again (or can be reloaded correctly if you wipe it).
