Bricked AR300m after firmware update 4.3.25

Hi- long-time user/lover/lurker of GL-iNet routers and have owned at least 5 different models and sorry that my first post is a question.

I ran into an issue yesterday, trying to update to firmware 4.3.25 via the web interface from an earlier version (I believe it was in the 3 range). The file uploaded and firmware verification passed, and after hitting update and waiting a while, I lost wifi connection to the router and assumed it would reboot, but the router appeared to go into a boot-loop situation, where the green left power LED was on, and then every so often I’d see a green blip on the middle and red blip on the right LED. I couldn’t access it via ethernet (DHCP or manually setting the ethernet interface on my connecting device to 192.168.8.x or 192.168.1.2).

I probably messed up and had left the checkbox checked to keep settings as I didn’t run into any issues when doing the same update on a Mango-V2 router with the appropriate Mango firmware just before.

The plug in power and hold reset procedure gave the 5 expected LED blinks of the red light and then constant left green and right red LED to suggest that it was in uboot recovery mode, but it was not accessible at 192.168.1.1 via LAN ethernet port from a device with IP address of 192.168.1.2.

I popped the bottom cover off and used my 3.3v UART serial USB converter based on CH340x and connected to the ground/tx/rx pins by taping some dupont connectors into the through-holes, and connected via Putty with 157200 baud rate, 8N1, no flow control or parity.

When the router is in the reboot loop (not uboot mode), I’m seeing a bunch of gibberish but then suddenly I get some readable output before the cycle repeats. I’m not able to get a shell by mashing keys during the boot up cycle, and when I get it into uboot (based on the LEDs), I don’t get any readable serial output, just occasionally some gibberish. Because I do get some repeatable output via serial during the regular boot attempt, it seems that my serial settings are ok and I don’t have tx/rx pin reversal issues?

It doesn’t seem to make a difference if I leave the switch in left or right position to try and boot into NAND or NOR (I think I had previously repurposed the switch for VPN).

Here’s a sample of the log output, which suggests that I have major filesystem issues and no root/boot partition defined.

Since I can’t seem to access uboot, I can’t attempt to do a TFTP firmware upload or uboot reload. I have a JTAG device and I’m wondering if there’s something else I can do to revive this router, as although it’s cheap and underpowered, it has been a great companion in my every-day-carry work bag.

Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas.


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22:17:26.228 [ 0.363415] console [ttyS0] enabled
22:17:26.230 [ 0.363415] console [ttyS0] enabled
22:17:26.234 [ 0.370975] bootconsole [early0] disabled
22:17:26.240 [ 0.370975] bootconsole [early0] disabled
22:17:26.264 [ 0.398550] m25p80 spi0.0: w25q128 (16384 Kbytes)
22:17:26.267 [ 0.403502] 4 fixed‑partitions partitions found on MTD device spi0.0
22:17:26.274 [ 0.410073] Creating 4 MTD partitions on "spi0.0":
22:17:26.279 [ 0.415032] 0x000000000000‑0x000000040000 : "u‑boot"
22:17:26.285 [ 0.420959] 0x000000040000‑0x000000050000 : "u‑boot‑env"
22:17:26.292 [ 0.427205] 0x000000050000‑0x000000ff0000 : "reserved"
22:17:26.298 [ 0.433312] 0x000000ff0000‑0x000001000000 : "art"
22:17:26.309 [ 0.441958] spi‑nand: Paragon(XTX) SPI NAND was found.
22:17:26.310 [ 0.447280] spi‑nand: 128 MiB, block size: 128 KiB, page size: 2048, OOB size: 128
22:17:26.319 [ 0.455258] 2 fixed‑partitions partitions found on MTD device spi0.1
22:17:26.325 [ 0.461846] Creating 2 MTD partitions on "spi0.1":
22:17:26.330 [ 0.466802] 0x000000000000‑0x000000400000 : "kernel"
22:17:26.348 [ 0.482964] 0x000000400000‑0x000008000000 : "ubi"
22:17:26.996 [ 1.130748] found bad block 7ee0000
22:17:26.999 [ 1.134622] found bad block 7f00000
22:17:27.002 [ 1.138480] found bad block 7f20000
22:17:27.006 [ 1.142352] found bad block 7f40000
22:17:27.011 [ 1.146204] found bad block 7f60000
22:17:27.015 [ 1.150061] found bad block 7f80000
22:17:27.018 [ 1.153919] found bad block 7fa0000
22:17:27.021 [ 1.157772] found bad block 7fc0000
22:17:27.027 [ 1.161643] found bad block 7fe0000
22:17:27.030 [ 1.165929] libphy: Fixed MDIO Bus: probed
22:17:27.377 [ 1.510962] ag71xx 19000000.eth: Could not connect to PHY device. Deferring probe.
22:17:28.056 [ 2.190242] libphy: ag71xx_mdio: probed
22:17:28.346 [ 2.480324] mdio‑bus.0:1f: Found an AR934X built‑in switch
22:17:28.349 [ 2.486161] libphy: ar7240sw_mdio: probed
22:17:28.413 [ 2.547466] ag71xx 1a000000.eth: connected to PHY at fixed‑0:00 [uid=00000000, driver=Generic PHY]
22:17:28.422 [ 2.557361] eth1: Atheros AG71xx at 0xba000000, irq 5, mode: gmii
22:17:28.431 [ 2.565631] NET: Registered protocol family 10
22:17:28.434 [ 2.570281] random: fast init done
22:17:28.445 [ 2.578182] Segment Routing with IPv6
22:17:28.447 [ 2.582136] NET: Registered protocol family 17
22:17:28.449 [ 2.586775] bridge: filtering via arp/ip/ip6tables is no longer available by default. Update your scripts to load br_netfilter if you need this.
22:17:28.464 [ 2.600174] 8021q: 802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8
22:17:28.808 [ 2.942046] ag71xx 19000000.eth: connected to PHY at mdio‑bus.0:1f:04 [uid=004dd042, driver=Generic PHY]
22:17:28.817 [ 2.952712] eth0: Atheros AG71xx at 0xb9000000, irq 4, mode: mii
22:17:28.828 [ 2.962408] UBI: auto‑attach mtd5
22:17:28.831 [ 2.965865] ubi0: attaching mtd5
22:17:33.278 [ 7.412164] ubi0: scanning is finished
22:17:33.331 [ 7.464329] ubi0 error: ubi_read_volume_table: not enough PEBs, required 986, available 983
22:17:33.339 [ 7.473285] ubi0 error: ubi_attach_mtd_dev: failed to attach mtd5, error ‑28
22:17:33.344 [ 7.480653] UBI error: cannot attach mtd5
22:17:33.348 [ 7.485461] VFS: Cannot open root device "(null)" or unknown‑block(0,0): error ‑6
22:17:33.357 [ 7.493250] Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
22:17:33.365 [ 7.501887] 1f00 256 mtdblock0
22:17:33.371 [ 7.501891] (driver?)
22:17:33.374 [ 7.508637] 1f01 64 mtdblock1
22:17:33.377 [ 7.508639] (driver?)
22:17:33.380 [ 7.515392] 1f02 16000 mtdblock2
22:17:33.383 [ 7.515396] (driver?)
22:17:33.385 [ 7.522159] 1f03 64 mtdblock3
22:17:33.391 [ 7.522163] (driver?)
22:17:33.394 [ 7.528913] 1f04 4096 mtdblock4
22:17:33.397 [ 7.528916] (driver?)
22:17:33.400 [ 7.535669] 1f05 126976 mtdblock5
22:17:33.403 [ 7.535673] (driver?)
22:17:33.406 [ 7.542434] Kernel panic ‑ not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown‑block(0,0)
22:17:33.415 [ 7.551946] Rebooting in 1 seconds..
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22:17:41.717 H���s���ɠZ.�х�^W˝ �K�f�nk��Y��dXW��r*
22:17:41.720 ^M!��i�^V*�j
22:17:41.720 Y^W^K��^Z�A��5
22:17:41.725 ^T��C�T���ݠY^W+j
22:17:41.725 ��E��r���5
22:17:41.728 �^]�1�^N�դ�0�*����A�Y.W^VA�^N�ѡ.W�kA�^WJ�����)��^I��^C��^U^U^E�ղW^VA�.���^V����22:18:03.125 j
22:18:03.236 �!����Ѳ^^Z�������YV�;��^NW�k��V�ٍ�T��˝�Y^W^Kj
22:18:03.240 �^W^K^BlZk�dk���T��C�T�^˝ Y^W+*�22:18:04.777 j
22:18:05.560 j
22:18:18.382 printenv
22:18:24.248 �aI��*^V�y^Zݵ��e�lV��V��W���a���5�T���^V���j
22:18:24.253 �^W^K��Z�^A�k�5
22:18:24.253 T��C�T���ݠY^W+*�22:18:28.954 printenv
22:18:38.696 printenv
22:18:41.029 printenv
22:18:45.258 ^M!������^���K����YV�� �^W��ikA�V����T��˝�Y^W^Kj
22:18:45.262 �^W^K^B���‑��w�
22:18:45.262 ���5�T��˝�Y^W+j
22:18:47.928 uboot
22:18:51.754
22:18:52.417
22:18:53.108
22:19:00.227
22:19:00.775
22:19:01.724
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Hi

The Baud Rate should 115200.
Advanced Uboot - GL.iNet Router Docs 3

And after the device is powered on, please immediately press gl or j to abort the bootloader startup, and then you should be able to enter the command or enter the httpd to activate the uboot web UI.

Thanks for the response- I was so hopeful that perhaps I had used the wrong baud rate, but I mistyped in the message above, and I double checked my putty settings and I already was using 115200, not 157200. :pensive_face:

The fact that I do get some normal looking output characters over the serial connection in the log above when letting the router try to boot normally suggests to me that my connections and serial settings are correct (because if I was using the wrong baud rate then no output would be readable, and if my tx/rx pins were wrong there also shouldn't be any readable output?).

When booting to safe mode and hitting j, I only got gibberish though and if I type httpd, I get a bunch more unreadable output, and still can't load the uboot webpage at 192.168.1.1.

The fact that I get a bunch of unreadable output every time I type httpd suggests that it may still be trying to follow the commands. Is there a sequence of commands that can force it to reload a uboot firmware from tftp even if the output is not readable?

The TX/RX connection and configuration appear to be correct.
The issue may stem from compatibility problems with the UART-to-USB converter or an loose jumper connections.

Please first check that the DuPont connectors are firmly and reliably connected.
If possible, try using a different UART-to-USB converter to see if the issue persists.

Since U-Boot is still intact, maybe we can try repeating the debricking process a few more times following the guide below: