- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,570
- 10,202
- 126
Ok, so I have purchased, over the last few years, FIVE AC68U-class routers. (Some AC68U, AC68R, AC1900, AC1900P. Same hardware, essentially.)
One, I have been using for nearly three years or more, AC68U, with Shibby Tomato on it. I have been mostly happy with it.
Two more, I bought as spares. Then I bought two more, before they all dried up, so that I could use Asus' 'AiMesh' firmware.
So, I dug out those routers last night, and found my fourth spare one, which meant I could go ahead with the AiMesh project.
I pulled out the first one, fired it up, logged in, and expected to update the firmware to the newest Asus' firmware. Well, it had Tomato on it, too.
Only, I can't seem to get Tomato off of it. I tried flashing all of the four (they removed anything before 3.0.0.4 firmware off of their site) AC68R firmwares, both from inside Tomato (errors after a few seconds of upload, with "bad TRX header"), using the Recovery_2000 Asus router Firmware Recovery Tool for Windows. (Put router into recovery mode, launch tool, upload firmware. It fails the firmware upload at around 75%, every time, and then reboots the router, and... Tomato's back.) I also tried booting into the recovery mode MiniCFE Web Server, and uploading the Asus' firmware that way. Says it uploaded, reboots, and then... Tomato's back. The Asus firmware won't "take".
I finally had a minor epiphany, and loaded the newest 3.0beta-something (oldest that the Router Database showed) off of DD-WRT's site, and I shoe-horned DD-WRT on there, and that's what's on there now.
I thought, that with Asus changing the CFE on their newer firmwares, to prevent loading 3rd-party firmwares, they may have updated the TRX format spec for the firmwares, and since my (newest) version of Shibby Tomato is from 2017, I thought that if the TRX spec was updated, then an up-to-date newer DD-WRT might support flashing it from within DD-WRT.
DD-WRT gets farther, it doesn't complain about a "bad TRX header" at all, but it shows "Firmware uploading", with a 300-second countdown timer. It gets down to like 120 seconds, then it goes to "page not found" in Firefox. (IPv4 configured for static IP, not DHCP.) Power light blinking in groups of three blinks. Unsure if that means flashing, or what. I left it like that for maybe 10-15 minutes, still nothing showing up. Rebooting the router, rebooting to mini-CFE and clearing NVRAM, still shows up as DD-WRT.
Is there something in the newest Asus firmware releases (3.0.0.4.xxxx) that prevents flashing on top of existing 3rd-party firmwares? Something different in the TRX headers? Or are they simply just "too big", and timing out on upload during recovery mode? DD-WRT was like 24MB, I tried a VPN 1.34 version of Shibby Tomato, that was 10MB first, in case I needed a "slimmer" firmware already loaded, to leave space to load a bigger firmware on. Asus' newest firmware is like 44MB.
Edit: https://www.myopenrouter.com/forum/unable-restore-default-firmware-tomato
That page seems to suggest flashing DD-WRT from Tomato, and then from DD-WRT back to factory firmware. Unsure what about that process wasn't quite working for me.
This video, with an AC66U, is the exact method that I tried, and it doesn't work. It errors out uploading the firmware. I've tried two different AC68U-family power bricks, two different ethernet cables (maybe both are bad?), still no love from my router.
"Failed to upload firmware file - transfer cancelled." at 80%, with a brand-new out of the package ethernet cable.
https://tedstechshack.com/2015/10/2...edtomato-firmware-on-an-asus-rt-ac68u-router/
https://blog.silocitylabs.com/post/2018/01/01/flashing-merlin-to-tm-ac1900-or-ac68u/comment-page-1/
One, I have been using for nearly three years or more, AC68U, with Shibby Tomato on it. I have been mostly happy with it.
Two more, I bought as spares. Then I bought two more, before they all dried up, so that I could use Asus' 'AiMesh' firmware.
So, I dug out those routers last night, and found my fourth spare one, which meant I could go ahead with the AiMesh project.
I pulled out the first one, fired it up, logged in, and expected to update the firmware to the newest Asus' firmware. Well, it had Tomato on it, too.
Only, I can't seem to get Tomato off of it. I tried flashing all of the four (they removed anything before 3.0.0.4 firmware off of their site) AC68R firmwares, both from inside Tomato (errors after a few seconds of upload, with "bad TRX header"), using the Recovery_2000 Asus router Firmware Recovery Tool for Windows. (Put router into recovery mode, launch tool, upload firmware. It fails the firmware upload at around 75%, every time, and then reboots the router, and... Tomato's back.) I also tried booting into the recovery mode MiniCFE Web Server, and uploading the Asus' firmware that way. Says it uploaded, reboots, and then... Tomato's back. The Asus firmware won't "take".
I finally had a minor epiphany, and loaded the newest 3.0beta-something (oldest that the Router Database showed) off of DD-WRT's site, and I shoe-horned DD-WRT on there, and that's what's on there now.
I thought, that with Asus changing the CFE on their newer firmwares, to prevent loading 3rd-party firmwares, they may have updated the TRX format spec for the firmwares, and since my (newest) version of Shibby Tomato is from 2017, I thought that if the TRX spec was updated, then an up-to-date newer DD-WRT might support flashing it from within DD-WRT.
DD-WRT gets farther, it doesn't complain about a "bad TRX header" at all, but it shows "Firmware uploading", with a 300-second countdown timer. It gets down to like 120 seconds, then it goes to "page not found" in Firefox. (IPv4 configured for static IP, not DHCP.) Power light blinking in groups of three blinks. Unsure if that means flashing, or what. I left it like that for maybe 10-15 minutes, still nothing showing up. Rebooting the router, rebooting to mini-CFE and clearing NVRAM, still shows up as DD-WRT.
Is there something in the newest Asus firmware releases (3.0.0.4.xxxx) that prevents flashing on top of existing 3rd-party firmwares? Something different in the TRX headers? Or are they simply just "too big", and timing out on upload during recovery mode? DD-WRT was like 24MB, I tried a VPN 1.34 version of Shibby Tomato, that was 10MB first, in case I needed a "slimmer" firmware already loaded, to leave space to load a bigger firmware on. Asus' newest firmware is like 44MB.
Edit: https://www.myopenrouter.com/forum/unable-restore-default-firmware-tomato
That page seems to suggest flashing DD-WRT from Tomato, and then from DD-WRT back to factory firmware. Unsure what about that process wasn't quite working for me.
This video, with an AC66U, is the exact method that I tried, and it doesn't work. It errors out uploading the firmware. I've tried two different AC68U-family power bricks, two different ethernet cables (maybe both are bad?), still no love from my router.
"Failed to upload firmware file - transfer cancelled." at 80%, with a brand-new out of the package ethernet cable.
https://tedstechshack.com/2015/10/2...edtomato-firmware-on-an-asus-rt-ac68u-router/
https://blog.silocitylabs.com/post/2018/01/01/flashing-merlin-to-tm-ac1900-or-ac68u/comment-page-1/
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter