Problem with latest batch of MT300N V2 on Amazon

projects · 2021-09-23T13:27:27.298Z

I buy these V2’s on Amazon on a fairly regular basis. I’ve bought dozens and all have worked exactly the same way until the last two I purchased. By the way, those last two took WEEKS to get to me rather than the days mentioned on Amazon. It’s why I order from there, because I know I’ll have them in 2-3 days.
My method to prepare these devices is to power it up, then use a laptop to connect to it using wifi.
I then go into the advanced menu and use the firmware option to upload my own firmware.
When it reboots, it’s running what I want it to run. I’ve used this version hundreds of times and they always act exactly the same way until now.
On this batch, the advanced menu would never come up, instead saying that luci was not yet fully installed. I finally used the reset button to put it into factory reset mode then uploaded my firmware file to it and then it was fine.
I have ordered more from Amazon and am not only concerned about the shipping time but that there is something that has been changed in the V2 series.

alzhao · 2021-09-23T14:37:04.731Z

I think the reason is because these two comes with a new version of firmware that does not have luci installed.

As you only have two so it is easy that you may just upgrade using ssh. It is easy.

scp your firmware (eg firmware.bin) to the router. Then use

sysupgrade -n firmware.bin

projects · 2021-09-23T15:12:57.484Z

No problems on upgrading them with my own firmware once I found the problem. I just wondered why all of a sudden things were different. Is this the case from those on, that luci is no longer fully installed?

And, why was this done after such a long time being as they used to be?

alzhao · 2021-09-24T09:12:48.095Z

LarryP:

And, why was this done after such a long time being as they used to be?

When upgrade to OpenWrt 19.07, there is not too much space left on the 16MB flash, so we need to remove some packages from default installation.

projects · 2021-09-24T15:38:36.021Z

I didn’t even know that you keep updating the openwrt versions on these since I overwrite them with my own.

So, what has to happen? You just connect the device to let it update? How long does it take and does it then fill up the space to the point where I won’t be able to update the firmware?

smiths · 2021-09-24T22:52:59.634Z

Hello Project,

Most of my MT300N-V2 run stock OpenWRT. Nothing against the GL.INET firmware (I leave it alone on MT1300s), but my use cases are not “running a VPN from a hotel room” for which the default firmware is king. For other use cases - you sometime have to fight it’s self healing properties!

When I upgrade I tend to use the recovery method with an ethernet cable from PC, always done it that way. You know its cooked when the LEDS stop flashing and go solid. I would have a handy ethernet cable hanging around, and do 1907 builds that way.

Simon

projects · 2021-09-24T23:16:05.528Z

I’ve never had a problem with them, either using the wireless connection or the wired but it’s faster using the wifi. Once it reboots, it’s running my fw.

No big deal, just wondered what had changed.