GL-AR300M Cannot access router or uboot or swap NAND/NOR boot

Hi, I have a GL-AR300M (NAND and NOR version), it lights up when connected but just doesn't give an IP address or do anything useful. I followed the steps to get to uboot thinking it maybe needs firmware reflash to start behaving again but I cannot access uboot at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.1/uboot.html either, when connected to computer Windows just shows the ethernet connection as 'network cable unplugged'. I tried with a different gl.inet device (Flint) and even before I manually change the IP to 192.168.1.2 it still shows the ethernet connection as connected 1gbps, I'm expecting the GL-AR300M should be doing the same so not a good start or does this model behave differently?

The router is GL-AR300M so NAND and NOR version but moving the side switch etc I can't get it to boot to anything/any uboot response at all.

If I power up while holding in the reset button I get green light on left LED, then red LED blinks 5 times then middle green LED lights and stays lit, seems like it should be doing something but just isn't happening.

I tried uboot steps from two other gl.inet products and can reach uboot page fine from each so not a computer config issue/incognito window issue, the GL-AR300M just doesn't want to behave as expected.

Is there any other way of getting to uboot page/forcing router to swap between NAND and NOR boot etc to try and recover this? It's a useful travel sized router and given it powers up OK I'm expecting it's recoverable somehow rather than a useless paperweight? I did see something about UART serial and FTP but I don't have UART serial and just looks like I'd get in even more of a mess, or changing a setting via SSH to force NAND/NOR boot but I can't access the GL-AR300M at all to try that...

Hope someone has some ideas for this please?

Thanks

@alzhao

As you can do uboot with other two GLiNet routers so I don’t think anything wrong with your steps.

But you can surely try another computer and try both the Ethernet ports. The LED indicate that the uboot is still working.

Thanks alzhao, I've been trying this for days and had absolutely nothing (3 computers, 2x win10, 1x ubuntu, using firefox, edge, internet explorer, chrome and opera (plus any incognito options), was driving me crazy!), strangely just retried and DID somehow get to uboot screen so major success!

Unfortunately not quite there yet, this one belongs to a friend who got stuck so said I'd uboot it for them and flash latest firmware, just tried that with 4.3.18 though from uboot screen and after a restart it just doesn't start up correctly - does not give IP to computer (computer just has a 169.254 address) and no response at any IP address.

I just asked them for more info and it seems they updated it to openwrt 23.5 I think they said then tried to downgrade at which point it all went wrong. Since the gl.inet version 4.3.18 is likely based on v21 (or maybe even still 19?) I'm guessing that's why it will not go back and the uboot load is failing?

What is the process for going back to gl.inet firmware from openwrt firmware that's based on a newer openwrt version?

Also I noticed this uboot version has "uboot 2.0 versions 22.02.16" which I expect is miles out of date, do you have a link to latest GL-AR300M uboot I can load at the same time?

I'm hoping now I can actually access uboot the steps are hopefully simple enough to get back to gl.inet firmware?

Thanks
@alzhao

That is the latest uboot I guess. Pls check uboot-for-qca95xx/bin at master · gl-inet/uboot-for-qca95xx · GitHub

Depends on if you are using the Nand or Nor firmware.
The nor firmware should just be easy. Just flash stock firmware in your openwrt firmware without keep settings it should be fine.
The nand firmware maybe a little difficult. I cannot really remember. There is a .tar firmware and .img firmware. Maybe you need to flash the .img firmware.

If you have UART connector, I guess that you can try to connect to AR300M to find out what is really happening

OK thanks, looks like latest uboot on that link is 22.02.16 so seems I'm up to date.

I managed to use uboot to flash latest openwrt 23.05 on it which was what it had previously, do at least now have a functional device that will boot. Definitely a step in the right direction!

Unfortunately I still can't move back to gl.inet firmware, when try to flash latest gl.inet 4.3.18 TAR file via openwrt Luci it looks like it is uploading but when device reboots it just starts back up with openwrt 23.05 still and standard 192.168.1.1 IP address (I know IMG shouldn't be used here but if I try an upload it gives warning size is too large, have not forced it on). If I try latest gl.inet 4.3.18 IMG file via uboot the results are the same - still boots up as openwrt 23.05. Same results using the older 3.216 gl.inet firmware.

This is the state it was in previously when they tried loading an older version of openwrt firmware in the hope that gl.inet firmware would then actually go on, instead it just made the device unbootable. I had a similar issue myself years ago with Brume 1 and openwrt 21, in the end I just waited long enough that the gl.inet firmware caught up and then it flashed to openwrt 21 based gl.inet firmware no problem.

That's obviously not really an option here and not sure GL-AR300M will ever get an openwrt 23 or later based firmware, certainly not expecting that any time soon regardless.

-> Please let me know what to try next to get this device back to gl.inet firmware

Device currently shows as below:

Thanks
@alzhao

Looking at below I can see the GL-AR300M 4.3.8 firmware is based on openwrt 22.03.4

Since I had a working openwrt I decided to risk downgrading to older openwrt version in the hope the older openwrt would then allow 'upgrade' to gl.inet openwrt version, I managed to load 22.03.3 and tried flashing gl.inet 4.3.8 TAR firmware from openwrt luci - seemed to flash OK but on reboot it was still loading luci and logging in to show openwrt 22.03.3, same result via uboot flash of the 4.3.8 IMG. Loaded openwrt 22.03.4 to match the gl.inet openwrt version and retried both methods but the same outcome, device just will not flash back to boot gl.inet firmware and 192.168.8.1 default IP address...

Any ideas?

@alzhao

Can you make sure if it is not browser cache issue?

Another try is to flash firmware via ssh.

Hi Alzhao,
Thanks for getting back to me, I can't see how this could be a browser cache issue as the device is giving me 192.168.1.235 IP address (laptop is DHCP), logs in OK at 19.168.1.1 where I can move between menus etc so real connection. Is no sign of gl.inet interface (nor default 192.168.8.x range), also when it was flashed to openwrt 22.03.3 and then I tried loading gl.inet 4.3.8 (openwrt 22.03.4 based) it was still showing openwrt 22.03.3 as version in Luci. I'm trying this from a different PC to the one I flashed with.

Could you please send me some steps for SSH and I can try that if not too convoluted, not really had a need to SSH in before, think I've only done it once to check something and definitely not an expert with that, would really need step by step commands to try this.

Thanks for the help so far, still confident we can get this resolved somehow :slight_smile:

Thanks
@alzhao

First, you should be able to ssh to the router.

Second, use scp (or winscp) to upload the firmware to the router /tmp

Third, ssh to the router and use sysupgrade to change the firmware

cd /tmp
sysupgrade -n -v -f xxxx.img 

For anyone who reads this thread in future - since device didn't want to boot NAND and flashing the GL-AR300M firmware didn't look to be changing anything for the NOR boot I just gave up and flashed GL-AR300M16 NOR firmware via uboot, now starts up with gl.inet firmware as I wanted and works well enough for what I need. Not sure why device will not boot NAND and I'm sure this isn't the right way to do things but this is a good enough solution for me. Since I already had it working well enough for my needs I didn't try the SSH option described.

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