Hi,
I recently bought two re-certified tm-ac1900 routers from tanga and I had trouble flashing large firmware (~29mb firmware = 100% failure) to both routers. I have only tried the below methods on re-certified tm-ac1900, but the technique may be generally useful on other models that has cfe.
Symtoms: restoration utility would successfully connect and starts uploading but failed with error "Failed to upload the firmware file. transfer cancelled". On minicfe web the upload would be interrupted and connection timeout. In both cases the router proceed with normal booting sequence into the existing firmware with setting reset.
possible solution:
Flash FW_TM_AC1900_30043761703 (~16mb) if you need to unlock cfe, or tomato-RT-AC68U-ARM--138-VPN-64K(~11mb) if your cfe is already unlocked - yes, you will most likely fail quite a number of times before one success flash. Keep switching ethernet ports and keep on trying.
tips:
tips1) On both routers I had to try 7 and 11 times respectively for one successful flash with the 16mb firmware.
tips2) I noticed if you hold the reset button for the entire duration the progress bar seems to go further and may have higher chance of success.
How to get to any firmware of choice:
Use tomato by shibby as a gateway. Once you have your CFE unlocked you can very easily flash a small (~11mb) tomato firmware with restoration utility / minicfe web. I've had unsuccessful flash even with this firmware size, but I usually get it within three tries.
Once you can boot into tomato you can simply use the web upgrade page to flash asuswrt / asuswrt-merlin. I personally have not tried flashing ddwrt / openwrt from tomato. Remember to reset nvram otherwise asuswrt / asuswrt-merlin may not have proper config for basic connectivity.
TLDR:
Flash the smallest possible firmware you can find and use such firmware as gateway to flash other firmware with web upgrade tool. Small firmware size increase chance of a successful flash. Read tips section for more info.
I recently bought two re-certified tm-ac1900 routers from tanga and I had trouble flashing large firmware (~29mb firmware = 100% failure) to both routers. I have only tried the below methods on re-certified tm-ac1900, but the technique may be generally useful on other models that has cfe.
Symtoms: restoration utility would successfully connect and starts uploading but failed with error "Failed to upload the firmware file. transfer cancelled". On minicfe web the upload would be interrupted and connection timeout. In both cases the router proceed with normal booting sequence into the existing firmware with setting reset.
possible solution:
Flash FW_TM_AC1900_30043761703 (~16mb) if you need to unlock cfe, or tomato-RT-AC68U-ARM--138-VPN-64K(~11mb) if your cfe is already unlocked - yes, you will most likely fail quite a number of times before one success flash. Keep switching ethernet ports and keep on trying.
tips:
tips1) On both routers I had to try 7 and 11 times respectively for one successful flash with the 16mb firmware.
tips2) I noticed if you hold the reset button for the entire duration the progress bar seems to go further and may have higher chance of success.
How to get to any firmware of choice:
Use tomato by shibby as a gateway. Once you have your CFE unlocked you can very easily flash a small (~11mb) tomato firmware with restoration utility / minicfe web. I've had unsuccessful flash even with this firmware size, but I usually get it within three tries.
Once you can boot into tomato you can simply use the web upgrade page to flash asuswrt / asuswrt-merlin. I personally have not tried flashing ddwrt / openwrt from tomato. Remember to reset nvram otherwise asuswrt / asuswrt-merlin may not have proper config for basic connectivity.
TLDR:
Flash the smallest possible firmware you can find and use such firmware as gateway to flash other firmware with web upgrade tool. Small firmware size increase chance of a successful flash. Read tips section for more info.
Last edited:
