Re: WAP54G firmware upgrade goes awry

On Sun, 18 Jun 2006 14:52:25 -0400, Robert Coe <bob@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

The other day I upgraded the firmware on one of my Linksys WAP54G access
points from 2.08 to 3.04.

I did the same firmware upgrade about a month ago. WAP54G hardware
version 3.0. Firmware went from 2.06 to 3.04. No problems. However,
the upgrade did not retain any of the settings. I had to reset the
access points to defaults and reload everything.

I did it remotely from a PC in another building.

Ummm... did you do it via wireless or wired from the other building?
If wireless, I've had a few disasters trying to do it over wireless.
The problem is that the firmware overscribbles parts of the running
firmware needed to finish the firmware upload. It initiates a
disconnect or possibly a reboot before the upload is completed. This
does not happen with a wired ethernet connection.

If done from another building, how many feet of CAT5 were involved?
I'm not sure I would trust hundreds of feet of cable to deliver the
firmware without any errors.

All
went well until the upgrade was declared complete, whereupon the access point
became totally unresponsive. It continued to serve wireless clients, but could
not be managed. Even manually rebooting didn't help. I finally had to swap it
out, reset it to factory settings, and reconfigure it from scratch. (The
upgrade did "take"; the displayed firmware level is now 3.04.)

I've noticed that some routers and access points are very reluctant to
display the internal web server. My usual trick is to tack on the "/"
at the end of the URL as in:
http://192.168.1.245/
which seems to work better. Even so, it sometimes takes about 30
seconds for the login box to appear.

Also, I'm having a new problem with a different pair of WAP54G v3.1
(firmware 3.04) access points in bridge mode. If I make any change to
the wireless config going through the wireless link from the other end
of the bridge, the remote end of the bridge hangs or goes comatose
until the power is cycled. It's quite consistent in both directions.
It doesn't exactly fit your description but this might be what you're
seeing.

Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I did the same thing to another WAP54G
over the weekend, from home. Now I can't contact that one either, so I guess
I'll have to swap it out tomorrow and reconfigure it from scratch.

Settings are not retained between major firmware releases (i.e. 2.x to
3.x). I don't recall if it cleared the settings (reset to default) or
if I had to do it manually. As a matter of habit, I always reset a
router to default after each firmware update (unless the instructions
claim that the settings are retained).

Is this a known problem? Is there a workaround (installing an intermediate
upgrade, for example)? I've got about a dozen more WAP54Gs I'd like to
upgrade, and swapping them all out would be a pain.

Could you explain what you mean by "swapping them out"? If you have a
large number of these, just prepare an upgraded access point, load the
desired settings, and replace the access point with the pre-loaded
upgraded access point. Don't bother trying to do field upgrades.

Also, note that reloading previously saved settings (config.dat)
doesn't work between radically different firmware updates.

Incidentally, the subject should really be
"WAP54G settings go away with firmware upgrade."
The upgrade was apparently successful. Only the settings were lost.
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
.

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