[dastafford]

Hi there.

Happened to find an old router sitting on the shelf that we had previously flashed to dd-wrt (21061). Thought I'd flash it to the latest version to see what had changed/improved/been added, just for curiosity.

Logged into the web interface, went to Admin/Firmware Upgrade, selected the correct downloaded file and clicked "upgrade".

Get the message "upgrading firmware for 10 seconds (counts down to 290, which seems awfully quick) then the message saying "Upgrade successful". I allow router to reboot itself and get presented with the same version as was previously on it.

Tried putting the original vendor's firmware back onto the device. Same process, same result.

Power cycled the device before and after the flash - no difference.

Tried erasing nvram - no difference.

Tried different browsers - no difference

Anyone got any ideas? What did I miss?

Thanks in advance

DAS

Update:
Immediately (within minutes) after posting the above to the forum, I tried one more time and it magically worked. I have no idea what was different about this attempt. Now have 40559 on the router. Bizarre!

[kernel-panic69]

You will want to upgrade to a more recent build, but we have no idea what router you have. Please refer to the forum rules and guidelines, firmware faq, and please consider upgrading before you post about issues you are bound to experience with 40559.

[dastafford]

Thank you for your response.

The original post related to an inability to upgrade the firmware at all so getting the device up to the latest build before contacting the forum was never going to be an option.

Second, I felt the issue was device-independent in that it was the firmware update function that was not working. For the record, the device is a D-Link DIR-825 C1.

Thank you for alerting me to the unreliability of the router database, too. I had looked up the device in question and 40559 was the recommended latest build. Given that the device was sitting on 21061, I thought the later build would be a significant improvement. Who knew that "40559 IS A BAD BUILD for many many routers"? Personally, I'd probably disable the router database if it's in such bad shape.

I note that the first point in the general rules says "Releases prior the current stable aren't supported. So upgrade to the latest stable or recommened BETA release first. Or if you are told to "upgrade 1st" to the latest BETA (at your own risk!)".

My brief visit to the FTP site suggests that "stable" releases are a thing of the past and that only "BETA" releases are used these days. Is that correct?

I'd be tempted to remove references to the router database, as in point 4, too.

BTW, the link to the demo (https://router-firmware-test.gamma.nu/DD-WRT/Info.htm) causes Chrome to report "The site ahead contains malware".

Searching the forums throws up a lot of hits but reviewing the latest 10 or so hasn't given me a specific good beta.

Not to worry, it was just an idle thought late in the afternoon when I didn't have anything else important to do.

Thanks again.

[kernel-panic69]

We as moderators have no control over website edits and operations, and can only make suggestions to site admins. The disclaimer would not be there had one of us not suggested it. Compiling the data needed to update the router database according to the site admins wishes over maintaining an up-to-date listing with the last 5-10 releases is where the conflict is, I guess. Also, updating wikis and information anywhere on the forum, main website is not going to happen overnight, and this is why there are disclaimers and such redundancy to inform people who take the time to read and research before posting, which is apparently too much to ask in this generation of TL;DR folks.

The current release for your router is here: https://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/betas/2020/07-14-2020-r43800/dlink-dir825-c1/

As a general rule of thumb, research the build threads and "flash and report". We don't know about issues unless they are reported; Users don't know about issues unless they research the forum. I'm sure there was a reason why you could not flash an update with other releases. Also, there are (at least) three methods to flash and upgrade (see installation wiki). I personally never stop reading and researching...

[kernel-panic69]

I also forgot to mention that you may have to flash the update via command line (see Installation Wiki in my sig). There was an issue related to webflash upgrades on Atheros for a while, if I am not mistaken.

[servicetech]

builds older as r33375 cannot be upgraded by WebUI, you need to install firmware by shell or revert to factory firmware, reset settings and install newer build factory to dd-wrt.

This is caused by the firmware identifier changed on all builds.

[kernel-panic69]

There were other issues as well, not just that. That was more specific to TP-Link devices, not Atheros in general, if I am not mistaken. Some images were too large, some versions of the webupgrade code had buffer size issues, etc.