[OpenWrt-Devel] Cannot flash UBNT Loco M2

[John Crispin]

On 11/03/2016 15:28, Matthias Schiffer wrote:
> On 03/11/2016 02:46 PM, Joseph Marlin wrote:
>> We certainly haven't. I've tried applying these patches - http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.embedded.openwrt.devel/39001
>>
>> to no avail. I still get hit by a "Error code 2 - Firmware Check Failed". 
>>
>> I'm really suspecting this comes down to an intentional check by Ubiquiti to prevent us from flashing, as described on this list and in this comment on the ticket - https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/20982#comment:16
>>
>> I have not yet had a chance to change the image header and CRC to look like a Ubiquiti image, nor do I know how to offhand, but I hope to give it a shot soon.
> 
> Hi,
> there is a lot of misinformation about this issue going around, in
> particular, the wiki is plain wrong (I'll fix that some time soon.)
> 
> Here's what's going on:
> 
> * OpenWrt had wrong partition sizes in its UBNT AirMax firmware for a long time
> * Old AirOS and the corresponding U-boot version had a bug that made U-boot
> ignore the partition sizes defined in the firmware image. This made OpenWrt
> work with the old U-boot despite its broken partition sizes
> * The new AirOS has been fixed in this regard (but contains a new bug).
> This also means that the broken OpenWrt images don't work anymore and can
> cause even more breakage
> * The new U-boot/AirOS did *not* change the flash layout. Both AirOS 5.5.x
> and 5.6.x use the same flash layout, the changed flash layout reported in
> the wiki is caused by broken OpenWrt images!
> * The OpenWrt trunk since r48829 and the CC branch since r48849 are fixed,
> meaning they define the correct partition sizes
> * The "Newly-erased block contained word ..." messages are a consequence of
> a missing patch in CC that has been backported as r48849 (the new U-boot
> doesn't remove flash protection, so the flash is just read-only from
> OpenWrt; TFTP recovery is the only way to upgrade in this state)
> * AFAIR "Error code 2 - Firmware Check Failed" is the consequence of a bug
> in the new U-boot: after flashing an image with broken (smaller) partition
> sizes, the recovery doesn't accept images with the original partition sizes
> anymore
> 
> Getting out of this state is not easy: you have a U-boot on your device
> that doesn't accept correct images, and an OpenWrt version that doesn't
> allow writing to the flash.
> 
> Through a serial console, you can try fixing the settings in U-boot; when I
> tried this the last time, I wasn't able to do so, but maybe I did something
> wrong. The U-boot console has a few interesting settings (I forgot the
> exact commands, but the "help" command should tell you everything you need
> to know):
> 
> * You can reset the MTD layout to the defaults. This makes the recovery
> accept correct images again. Unfortunately, in my experiments, this setting
> was not permanent even when I saves the environment after resetting the
> layout. In the hindsight, I remember there being a setting to disable flash
> protection, maybe that would made have the environment saving effective.
> 
> In the end, I fixed this by creating a patched OpenWrt image that allowed
> me to write to the uboot and uboot-env partitions; this allowed me to write
> back backups I had made of the uboot and uboot-env before I broke the flash
> layout by flashing OpenWrt. Obviously, this does not work if you don't have
> backups...
> 
> * If you don't plan to ever go back to AirOS again, it might be okay to
> just ignore the broken MTD layout in the U-boot settings. Get into the
> U-boot console, reset the MTD layout, start recovery, and flash an OpenWrt
> version after trunk r48829 or CC r48849.
> 
> 
> I hope this helps. I'd be interested if you find a way to parmanently reset
> the MTD layout from the U-boot console; unfortunately, I don't have a test
> device available at the moment.
> 
> Regards,
> Matthias
> 

Hi Matthias

looking at a US and EU image i see only 1 bit changed in the header. and
reading what you wrote above it sound like a small change to our image
generation process will make EU unit flashable again ? if so do we have
a patch or could you tell me which unit to order on amazon.de that has
the latest uboot with this bug fix so i can fix the regression in trunk.
sound like a lot of trouble and all caused by a small regression that is
easy to fix or did i miss something here ?

	John
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