Critical Problem Notification for GL-MT2500/GL-X3000/GL-XE3000

[bLuNa]

you*re welcome! Great to have another success story in this thread.

[mkdr]

I also used Firefox for the uboot upgrade, and mine bricked. I also had fw 4.7.0 already on the Brume 2 before.

[xize11]

I used Brave browser, but I don't think it is a browser issue everything was as expected but after reboot it died, usually when that happens the u-boot was broken but that is only possible if there are small differences in the emmc chip or maybe the partitioning.

one thing which may be a issue is that after the beta test I did no longer maintain firmware updates, so if there was something like a migration/preparation firmware from longer terms ago, I might had missed that.

[mkdr]

did you have fw 4.7.0 before the brick on it? what about others where it worked?

[xize11]

unfortunate I don't know, I just hopped in and tried to go in u-boot directly it could maybe even be below 4.7, before u-boot upgrade it did started normally with leds and I had connectivity.

[D.D]

@mkdr

What does that mean? What invoice? I wont pay for anything. I want a free replacment, also I wont pay any shipment or duty import costs from China.

Speaking from experience: They send you a replacement item for free and pay for the shipping, but when it's coming from outside EU and taxes apply (google EU custom rules, esp. VAT), then they are calculated when entering Europe and charged by the transporting company, which adds an own fee for handling that payment for you.

[D.D]

@ChrisW

@xize11

if you want to fix it yourself it will not be easy.
you likely need to desolder the EMMC chip

It's a bit less severe than that, luckily. I think you can always recover a bricked mt7981 device with just serial console access, using the chipset uart boot mode and GitHub - 981213/mtk_uartboot, though you'll need a 'ram' bl2 image as well as a u-boot image. (I use this on my own devices a lot when I've been hacking on u-boot and inevitably screw something up.)

Are you sure? Even if the problem are these suspected communication anomalies?

[D.D]

@Jonny_Quest

For those of you who had success, what browser did you use to update the device?

Same question for those who failed to update their device, what browser did you use?

It failed for me in Firefox and Chrome (Chromium)

[ChrisW]

@D.D

Are you sure? Even if the problem are these suspected communication anomalies?

Yes. The mt7981 boot rom and uart boot mode don't depend on the u-boot or bl2 flashed on the emmc at all. You can wipe the emmc completely so it's all just NUL bytes where the bootloader should be and still recover using uart boot. (I've done that...)

[D.D]

Now I regret a bit to have sent in my unit, as I have used serial console on other devices before. On the other hand not being tempted to go down another rabbithole is probably a good thing ...

[ChrisW]

For what it's worth, reflashing the u-boot and bl2 can be more than a bit fiddly anyway: you'd use the bootrom to start the bl2.ram and u-boot, then tftpboot a kernel and rescue initramfs, then dd the replacement u-boot from there. I think you could probably also tftp the replacement u-boot image into ram within u-boot itself then write it to the partition, but I always feel more at home doing it with a full kernel booted.

I can imagine why gl-inet wouldn't be keen on guiding people through this process remotely!

[D.D]

I can imagine the effort involved having done something similar on kirkwood devices. Only for a specialist (either professional or the enthusiastic amateur with enough free time)!

[pierocafa]

Just an info for someone that have to try with a Mac.
I tried with an M2 Macbook pro, and with an USB-C/Ethernet adapter and it was impossible to run the procedure.
I needed to use a Windows laptop with integrated Ethernet!
I did to a Puli AX!

[alannts425]

After reading this threads are Brume 2 compulsory need to upgrade the uboot since my router is working fine on 4.7.0 firmware?

However, i have done upgraded. Thanks

[Firesign]

Dear GL-INet or anyone who uses Linux (Mint)
GL-INet Uboot instructions/ X3000
There are no instructions for linux users in the above link that GL-iNet provided.
What are the required settings in the Wired IPV4 for:
Network
Gateway

Are there any other settings that need to be inputted or changed?

Thank you for your time in responding.

[xize11]

You need a static ip like:

Ip address: 192.168.1.2/24, so 192.168.1.2 is fine.
Subnet/netmask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.1

Aslong the gateway is properly it should work, it can sometimes take a little time for it to resolve and sometimes you need to restart the u-boot mode.

[Firesign]

xize11

Thank you for your help. I'm new to these routers and the information that you provided allowed me to reflash uboot. [sigh of relief]
Appreciated.

[cafebug]

The U-boot upgrade ran smoothly on my MT2500a with this file(the checksum is the same as GL-inet staff posted (Feb.24 2025 version).

It's not "that" fearsome to upgrade.

[xize11]

I hope soon there comes some news about the bricked ones

I noticed my beta test sample arrived today at GL-iNet.

My suspicioun is that it may only happen on very old outdated brume2, because mine was just sitting on the shelf because I had no use of it, I could have missed a certain migration within the firmware but I'm not sure, thats my guess.

[Max3]

Just updated my GL-X3000 Spitz AX.
I was already on the latest firmware so I upgraded Uboot.
All went well but after reboot the router just couln't connect.
After reading extensively this topic, I discovered that my unit was an "old hardware version" and I had to re-update Uboot accordingly to your post and the "alternate" Uboot upgrade.
In the end all went well, but I am extremely disappointed on how GL.iNet is handling this...
at least update the instructions for people like me with the old hardware version!