Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2017 17:56 Post subject: Help! Having hard time debricking R6300v2
My R6300v2 has been working fine with "Kong" firmware for over one year, with periodic upgrades every few months.
Then I flashed the latest Kong upgrade firmware back in May, using the web interface as usual, and the router didn't accept the firmware. The router rebooted and it was back to version just prior to the flashing.
I did some command to try to get the new firmware to load - don't quite remember - maybe it was "erase nvram" - maybe some other command - can't remember it was 2 months ago - and it's bricked.
Have been limping by with an off the shelf router ever since, with much less satisfaction, that one constantly locks up probably due to overheating and must be power cycled about 5x per day!
Want to get the R6300v2 flashed correctly and working again!
Got a USB to serial cable.
Successful at communicating to router thru serial terminal.
Can tftp firmware from pc command line to router however the router complains - it's as if the firmware is not accepted or not used to boot router with.
This is what the router shows on startup in serial console:
Code:
Digital core power voltage set to 0.9375V
Decompressing...done
CFE for Foxconn Router R6300v2 version: v1.0.16
Build Date: Thu Dec 12 17:57:15 CST 2013
Init Arena
Init Devs.
Boot up from NAND flash...
Boot partition size = 262144(0x40000)
DDR Clock: 400 MHz
Warning: invalid DDR setting of 0 MHz ignored. DDR frequency will be set to 400 MHz.
et0: Broadcom BCM47XX 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Controller 6.37.15.7 (r437571)
CPU type 0x0: 800MHz
Tot mem: 262144 KBytes
Device eth0: hwaddr (xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx removed for this forum post), ipaddr 192.168.1.1, mask 255.255.255.0
gateway not set, nameserver not set
Loader:raw Filesys:tftp Dev:eth0 File:192.168.1.2:vmlinuz Options:(null)
Loading: Failed.
Could not load 192.168.1.2:vmlinuz: Timeout occured
Checking crc...Boot program checksum is invalid
Device eth0 has been deactivated.
Device eth0: hwaddr (xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx removed for this forum post), ipaddr 192.168.1.1, mask 255.255.255.0
gateway not set, nameserver not set
Start TFTP server
Reading ::
Have tried tftp flashing both:
1. Kong firmware (ending in .bin) and
2. original Netgear firmware (ending in .chk).
Both fail to start linux and instead boot up to this tftp mode.
Break into CFE and then type "nvram erase" and then "reboot".
Then try loading the stock Netgear firmware via the tftp method again.
Remember to log everything from the terminal window to a text file and provide the text file if you need any further help.
Thank you merrow.
Turns out the reason the uploading of firmware was failing (and not really saying it was failing! it just did not do the "flash" step! and it never said the incoming firmware was not the slightly modified version therefore it was going to stop the process, it just silently failed!), was because I wasn't using the "specially modified version of the firmware for the CH (Charter Cable) version of this R6300v2 router".
File name for this CH version firmware is:
dd-wrt.K3_R6300V2CH.chk
Merrow75:
There's still a small problem, the router is working, but it seems it can't upgrade beyond the current loaded firmware, which is three years obsolete: "DD-WRT v24-sp2 (08/15/14) kongac (SVN revision 24865M)".
From what I remember, the error message in the serial console made it appear the firmware image has grown too large to decompress, and the router errors out with an "out of memory" or "out of disk space" error. I don't recall exactly the error message, and I disconnected the serial cable and put it back together.
For whatever reason the builds on the beta site are too big. Numerous people have logged tickets but the problem has not been addressed. As such the best thing to do is to stick to Kong's builds: http://www.desipro.de/ddwrt/K3-AC-Arm/
As @merrow said there are still issues with builds too big, but affecting AC1450, R6250 and a few Trendnet. R6300v2 only had problems with a couple of builds a year ago, but yeah try the Kong build you have a big chance to make it work with it. _________________ R6400v2 (boardID:30) - Kong 36480 running since 03/09/18 - (AP - DNSMasq - AdBlocking - QoS) R7800 - BS 31924 running since 05/26/17 - (AP - OpenVPN Client - DNSMasq - AdBlocking - QoS) R7000 - BS 30771 running since 12/16/16 - (AP - NAS - FTP - SMB - OpenVPN Server - Transmission - DDNS - DNSMasq - AdBlocking - QoS) R6250 - BS 29193 running since 03/20/16 - (AP - NAS - FTP - SMB - DNSMasq - AdBlocking)
Just tried the Kong build, the newest one, it appears to be a month old, DD-WRT v3.0-r32170M kongac (06/11/17), Kong build is 4 MB smaller than the Beta builds, which features were removed?
Just tried the Kong build, the newest one, it appears to be a month old, DD-WRT v3.0-r32170M kongac (06/11/17), Kong build is 4 MB smaller than the Beta builds, which features were removed?
Other than transmission I don't think anything else _________________ R6400v2 (boardID:30) - Kong 36480 running since 03/09/18 - (AP - DNSMasq - AdBlocking - QoS) R7800 - BS 31924 running since 05/26/17 - (AP - OpenVPN Client - DNSMasq - AdBlocking - QoS) R7000 - BS 30771 running since 12/16/16 - (AP - NAS - FTP - SMB - OpenVPN Server - Transmission - DDNS - DNSMasq - AdBlocking - QoS) R6250 - BS 29193 running since 03/20/16 - (AP - NAS - FTP - SMB - DNSMasq - AdBlocking)
Joined: 04 Jan 2007 Posts: 11564 Location: Wherever the wind blows- North America
Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2017 18:29 Post subject:
Not trying to hi-jack the thread...just wondering if there is a problem with wiki documentation.
Is the wiki correct for the Fash size for the R6300v2 unit? It says that Flash is 128M...how can these builds be too big at 30M? Or is there some other limiting factor that I'm not aware of.
redhawk _________________ The only stupid question....is the unasked one.
Not trying to hi-jack the thread...just wondering if there is a problem with wiki documentation.
Is the wiki correct for the Fash size for the R6300v2 unit? It says that Flash is 128M...how can these builds be too big at 30M? Or is there some other limiting factor that I'm not aware of.
redhawk
You make a good point. I'll need to check the serial logs to see the exact error message when I was loading images that were deemed to be too big.
