1. Home
  2. Omega Talk
  3. Omega 2/2+ hangs after sysupgrade and Reset does not work

Omega 2/2+ hangs after sysupgrade and Reset does not work

  • M

    Hello,

    Build Details are as follows:

    1. Built WRT Cross-compile environment for Onion on Ubuntu 16.04.02 VM. This was successful.
    2. The Omega 2/2+ (in a Power Dock as well as Arduino board) was flashed using the following command:
      sysupgrade -v -F openwrt-ar71xx-generic-onion-omega-squashfs-factory.bin.

    Results observed:

    1. Omega 2 hangs after flashing and Amber LED on the Omega 2 chip-set is continuously lit.
    2. Cannot login into Omega wifi using apcli0 or Omega AP IP address ( cannot see Omega wifi ssid at all)
    3. Resetting to factory defaults does not work.(Press and hold the reset key for 10 seconds)
    4. As there is no USB to serial chip in the power/Arduino dock, not possible to access Omega serially via the micro-USB port.

    Thanks and Regards.

    0 G 1 Reply
  • C

    Almost regardless of it, but especially if your going to do a custom build, getting a serial console setup is a basic requirement for troubleshooting.

    You can use any 3.3v serial adapter, just connect it to the appropriate pins.

    Note that if you flashed a bad firmware, you'll likely need to pursue a USB stick or wired Ethernet recovery. JTAG is a theoretical possibility, and I've done it on other MT7688's but I don't think anyone has found all the pins on an Omega yet.

    0
  • C

    openwrt-ar71xx-generic-onion-omega-squashfs-factory.bin

    That would explain why it failed.

    The Omega 2/2+ are little endian MT7688 "RAMIPS" systems.

    You built a firmware for the big endian AR71xx/AR93xx Omega 1. There may be instructions that are not specific or out of date?

    You'll need to pursue a hardware assisted recovery like a USB stick or wired Ethernet.

    0
  • M

    Thanks for your reply.

    The WRT build was done based on the instructions contained in the following URL.
    https://github.com/OnionIoT/OpenWRT-Packages/wiki/Setting-Up-the-Cross-Compile-Environment. Is this outdated? and is there any other method to build WRT packages and transfer compiled files to the Omega?

    As far as Serial access is concerned, there seems to be four Omega board offerings with different feature sets which is really confusing!!

    1. Expansion Dock - This dock contains a USB to Serial Interface chip.
    2. Power Dock - Does not contain USB-Serial chip set.
    3. Mini Dock - This dock contains a USB to Serial Interface chip.
    4. Arduino Dock - Does not contain USB-Serial chip set.

    So, i am left with no choice now but purchase an Expansion or a Mini Dock and obtain serial access to Omega.

    Thanks and Regards.

    0
  • M

    Hi Chris,

    Thanks for your reply.

    The menuconfig I have is currently set to 'Atheros AR7xxx/AR9xxx'. ... I don't see any options resembling either 'ramips' or 'mt7688'. Is any other target to be specified for Omega 2 and/or Omega 2+?
    I am using the openwrt files for the latest and great "TRUNK" version.

    Thanks and Regards.

    0
  • C

    So, i am left with no choice now but purchase an Expansion or a Mini Dock and obtain serial access to Omega.

    This is not true at all. You don't have to rely on the dock for serial connection, you can use any 3rd party 3.3v serial solution, for example a cheap CP2102 dongle (though you'll typically get it a lot faster if you buy a $6 one than a $2 one). Just connect the appropriate transmit and receive pins and ground.

    Building working firmware from source is quite complex; there are threads on it here, but after months and months of broken promises Onion is still yet to release of sources that actually work. Also those for the Onion 2 are based on LEDE, which is a derivative of openWRT, not openWRT directly.

    You can however build Mediatek's version of OpenWRT for their LinkitSmart board and probably run it on the Omega 2, if you change the serial port assignments and perhaps make a few other adjustments.

    1
  • M

    Thanks again, Chris.

    Its a good idea to use the CP dongle for serial access, however i have ordered a new expansion dock - costs about 15$ here in Australia - as i may need serial access now and then and also no need to muck around with the wiring!

    Now that i am left with two boards - Power Dock and an Arduino Dock - for which the hard reset button is not working, can we RMA this back to Omega?

    Building working firmware from source is quite complex; there are threads on it here, but after months and months of broken promises Onion is still yet to release of sources that actually work.
    Yes agreed! I am just wondering how Onion released these products without any proper QA? I have found a lot of very basic problems even in module seating, very little air gap between the modules, chip overheating etc etc, let alone the OS and software build issues !!

    You can however build Mediatek's version of OpenWRT for their LinkitSmart board and probably run it on the Omega 2, if you change the serial port assignments and perhaps make a few other adjustments.

    OK. thanks will try this out. So, i have to just pull the WRT SDK and tool chain from Mediatek and push the compiled binaries on to Omega? and is the target architecture on menuconfig selected "Ralink" ?

    0
  • C

    Probably the first thing to do would be to try to reflash the factory binary. Until you can do that to resurrect the board there's little point in investing in anything else - a custom binary isn't going to be any easier to flash.

    The "hard" reset button depends on having a valid system image flashed (it merely triggers a wiping of the runtime user changes overlay partition), so with an invalid one loaded that would not be expected to work.

    0
  • G

    @MJ-Kumar said in Omega 2/2+ hangs after sysupgrade and Reset does not work:

    Results observed:

    1. Omega 2 hangs after flashing and Amber LED on the Omega 2 chip-set is continuously lit.
    2. Cannot login into Omega wifi using apcli0 or Omega AP IP address ( cannot see Omega wifi ssid at all)
    3. Resetting to factory defaults does not work.(Press and hold the reset key for 10 seconds)
    4. As there is no USB to serial chip in the power/Arduino dock, not possible to access Omega serially via the micro-USB port.

    Results summarized:
    Those Omega2s are (soft)bricked due to your custom firmware.

    As far as Serial access is concerned, there seems to be four Omega board offerings with different feature sets which is really confusing!!

    1. Expansion Dock - This dock contains a USB to Serial Interface chip.
    2. Power Dock - Does not contain USB-Serial chip set.
    3. Mini Dock - This dock contains a USB to Serial Interface chip.
    4. Arduino Dock - Does not contain USB-Serial chip set.

    You forgot to mention the 5th Omega's board.

    1. Breadboard Dock - Does not contain USB-Serial chip set. 😕

    So, i am left with no choice now but purchase an Expansion or a Mini Dock and obtain serial access to Omega.
    ...
    Its a good idea to use the CP dongle for serial access, however i have ordered a new expansion dock - costs about 15$ here in Australia - as i may need serial access now and then and also no need to muck around with the wiring!

    Arduino Dock 2 has a 3.3V logic level serial console header OMEGA_TX, OMEGA_RX, GND. So you could access those bricked Omega2s easily vith a serial-to-USB, serial-to-RS232, etc. module.

    In addition it has a USB host port too. So you could unbrick those Omega2s easily with a simple, well known method.

    Now that i am left with two boards - Power Dock and an Arduino Dock - for which the hard reset button is not working, can we RMA this back to Omega?

    No. Those FW_RST buttons are good, only your FW is bad.
    Hopefully you were not able to overwrite the bootloader.
    On the Arduino Dock 2 press and hold down the OMEGA_RESET button and after that switch the 5V power ON, and you'll see something similar on the serial console 😉

    ...

============================================ 
Onion Omega2 UBoot Version: x.x.x.x
-------------------------------------------- 
ASIC 7628_MP (Port5<-None)
DRAM component: 1024 Mbits DDR, width 16
DRAM bus: 16 bit
Total memory: 128 MBytes
Flash component: SPI Flash
Date:Oct 18 2016  Time:17:29:05
============================================ 
icache: sets:512, ways:4, linesz:32 ,total:65536
dcache: sets:256, ways:4, linesz:32 ,total:32768 
CPU freq = 575 MHZ
Estimated memory size = 128 Mbytes
Resetting MT7628 PHY.
Initializing MT7688 GPIO system.


**************************************
* Hold Reset button for more options *
**************************************


You have 40 seconds left to select a menu option...


Please select option: 
   [ Enter ]: Boot Omega2.
   [ 0 ]: Start Web recovery mode.
   [ 1 ]: Start command line mode.
   [ 2 ]: Flash firmware from USB storage.

    You should select Option [2]

    Happy Debricking! :slight_smile:

    0
  • M

    Thanks Georgy. I will try reflashing the b160 Omega OS via USB once i am able to get serial access to the dock. I will try your instructions on the Arduino dock and update.

    Thanks and Regards.

    0
  • M

    I have "debricked" the Omega 2+ with the new power dock and have installed the b160 image on to it. My next project is to build an LEDE cross compiler for Mediatek.

    Thanks so much for all your advise.

    0
omega sysupgrad 1
Log in to reply
 

Looks like your connection to Community was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.