AR150 CC Firmware is a Invalid Image

Technical Support for Routers
1

Hi,

I love the routers for the hardware, and I would probably order a few dozen tomorrow for a project we have, but unfortunately we haven’t been able to get a standard CC OpenWRT image to install yet. Unfortunately either BB or the packages in the GLI firmware do not work as well as a basic CC image.

I do this…
cd /tmp
wget GL.iNet download center
sysupgrade -n openwrt-clean-gl-ar150-1.0.bin
and get this…
Invalid image type.
Image check ‘platform_check_image’ failed.

I downloaded a couple times to be sure. I also even tried the AR150 bin from the trunk release (https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/generic/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-gl-ar150-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin) and it gave the same error.

We are just looking for a standard CC image like you find available for all the other travel sized routers, like the TL-WR703N for example. With that router we are able to install the bin and then install the driver packages for the RT3070 chipset and we can connect a USB Wifi Adapter to it without a problem. On the AR150 with the standard BB based GLI firmware the same adapter will not work after installing the same driver packages.

I should clarify, the adapter is recognized as a wireless device, but it keeps resetting over and over as you can see from the syslog.

I starts out as phy0 and keeps disconnecting and redetecting… it will go on forever, phy2… phy3… phy85… phy99. We don’t have that problem on the couple routers we have tried using CC. I ensured the settings matched also and made sure the TX power was set to 18 just so it wouldn’t be a power draw issue.

I have not tried to compile images from source yet because I figured if the official images were invalid so would mine considering they are being built from the same source. Any insight you can offer on how how to get a standard CC (not BB and not GLI) image would be great. I would recommend that you try to get the AR150 in the official CC release. Your firmware is good for people who are trying to use it as a regular router, but there are probably just as many, if not more, that are trying to use it for development purposes and special projects using the regular OpenWRT distribution.

Tue Nov 1 23:12:32 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 65.010000] usb 1-1: USB disconnect, device number 11

Tue Nov 1 23:12:32 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 65.460000] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 12 using ehci-platform

Tue Nov 1 23:12:32 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 65.760000] usb 1-1: reset high-speed USB device number 12 using ehci-platform

Tue Nov 1 23:12:33 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 65.920000] ieee80211 phy11: rt2x00_set_rt: Info - RT chipset 3071, rev 021c detected

Tue Nov 1 23:12:33 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 66.060000] ieee80211 phy11: rt2x00_set_rf: Info - RF chipset 0008 detected

Tue Nov 1 23:12:33 2016 kern.debug kernel: [ 66.100000] ieee80211 phy11: Selected rate control algorithm ‘minstrel_ht’

Tue Nov 1 23:12:33 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 66.130000] ieee80211 phy11: rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Info - Loading firmware file ‘rt2870.bin’

Tue Nov 1 23:12:33 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 66.160000] ieee80211 phy11: rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Info - Firmware detected - version: 0.29

Tue Nov 1 23:12:34 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 67.030000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

Tue Nov 1 23:12:34 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 67.730000] usb 1-1: USB disconnect, device number 12

Tue Nov 1 23:12:35 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 68.180000] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 13 using ehci-platform

Tue Nov 1 23:12:35 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 68.480000] usb 1-1: reset high-speed USB device number 13 using ehci-platform

Tue Nov 1 23:12:35 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 68.630000] ieee80211 phy12: rt2x00_set_rt: Info - RT chipset 3071, rev 021c detected

Tue Nov 1 23:12:35 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 68.700000] ieee80211 phy12: rt2x00_set_rf: Info - RF chipset 0008 detected

Tue Nov 1 23:12:35 2016 kern.debug kernel: [ 68.730000] ieee80211 phy12: Selected rate control algorithm ‘minstrel_ht’

Tue Nov 1 23:12:35 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 68.750000] ieee80211 phy12: rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Info - Loading firmware file ‘rt2870.bin’

Tue Nov 1 23:12:35 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 68.780000] ieee80211 phy12: rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Info - Firmware detected - version: 0.29

Tue Nov 1 23:12:36 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 69.460000] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

Tue Nov 1 23:12:37 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 69.870000] usb 1-1: USB disconnect, device number 13

Tue Nov 1 23:12:37 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 70.310000] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 14 using ehci-platform

Tue Nov 1 23:12:37 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 70.620000] usb 1-1: reset high-speed USB device number 14 using ehci-platform

Tue Nov 1 23:12:37 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 70.780000] ieee80211 phy13: rt2x00_set_rt: Info - RT chipset 3071, rev 021c detected

Tue Nov 1 23:12:38 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 70.930000] ieee80211 phy13: rt2x00_set_rf: Info - RF chipset 0008 detected

Tue Nov 1 23:12:38 2016 kern.debug kernel: [ 70.980000] ieee80211 phy13: Selected rate control algorithm ‘minstrel_ht’

Tue Nov 1 23:12:38 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 71.030000] ieee80211 phy13: rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Info - Loading firmware file ‘rt2870.bin’

Tue Nov 1 23:12:38 2016 kern.info kernel: [ 71.070000] ieee80211 phy13: rt2x00lib_request_firmware: Info - Firmware detected - version: 0.29

2

Just an update, we were able to get adapter to stop disconnecting after dropping the power a little more. We still really need to get a basic image though, ideally of CC. We seem to be able to get better performance with CC.

Can you please advise why it says your base openwrt images are invalid? I’m anxious to start working on our custom image we use on the WR703N for this one because if it works as well we be using these going forward. I just don’t want to spend the time building it when it looks like there is a problem that prevents them from being flashed.

Thanks!

3

@beecan, you must be using a different firmware. I just tried the same command as yours and my firmware just upgrades

cd /tmp
wget GL.iNet download center
sysupgrade -n openwrt-clean-gl-ar150-1.0.bin

To check what firmware you are using, can you check the UI? What displays in the UI.

4

Here is what is displayed under the firmware tab in GLI gui.

Current Version 2.10

Release History

Version: 2.10

Added SSH proxy

Updated software and kernel module repository

Version: 2.08

Fixed bug of ddns update

Fixed some bugs of web UI

Version: 2.05

Mobile browser support

IE 8 compatible (Partial)

LAN IP setting

Version: 2.03

Newly designed web UI

4 kinds of internet connection method

Easy-to-use software installation

Version: 1.073

Added 3G modem configuration interface

Version: 1.065

Fixed USB 1.1 bug

Added 3G modem support (in Luci)

 

5

This is the relevant version info that is displayed when SSH’ing into the shell:

BusyBox v1.22.1 (2014-10-08 16:34:50 HKT) built-in shell (ash)

BARRIER BREAKER (14.07, r42853)

 

6

Seems this is a very old version.

Maybe you can try to upgrade via uboot. Overview - GL.iNet Docs

7

But of course if you use ssh you can use --force

sysupgrade --force -n xxxxx.bin

8

I will try first upgrading to the newest GL firmware and then try and see if that makes a difference. I get nervous using -force since it generally results in in bricking, but I will try it as a last resort.

Once I have the perfect distro configured for our project I’m hoping I can build my custom image from your git repo just like I do with the normal openwrt repo and can flash it to the device without issue. I need to figure out a solution to the GPIO needs and we’ll be ready to order a lot of these for a project we have. These things have been awesome for us and short of a couple hardware related wants they pretty much do everything we were doing with two separate devices in one. I will post a thread is hardware for feedback.

Thanks

9

using --force is the same as using uboot web UI. uboot will not check if the image is valid.

But both will NOT damage the uboot itself. So you will finally debrick using uboot if your device cannot boot.