Alt-F-0.1B7 flashing: is my box bricked ?

[GabrieleV]

Hello,
kudos to the Alt-f staff for the great work. This has been posted at http://forum.dsmg600.info/viewtopic.php?id=6773 too.
I tried Alt-f reloaded yesterday, and it worked fine, except for saving settings to flash.
After that, I rebooted, rewrote fun_plug, and rebooted again.
I entered the Alt-f web gui and immediatly flashed the Alt-f firmaware.
After the reboot, my box was isolated from the network.
Flashing seems to be good, because pressing for 3 seconds the pwr button let light on the left amber led.
But my box has no IP address.
Previously it had a dynamic IP associated to its mac address.
It's P/N ENS323M B1G, shipped with FW 1.05 and upgraded to 1.08
Tried every ip address in the default range 192.168.1.0/32 but nothing to.
Suggestions ?

---

Gabriele Vivinetto
http://www.ict.rvmgroup.it

[Joao Cardoso]

On Wednesday, September 14, 2011 21:04:13 GabrieleV wrote:
> Hello,
> kudos to the Alt-f staff for the great work.

Thanks. The staff is just me :-o

> This has been posted at
> http://forum.dsmg600.info/viewtopic.php?id=6773 too.
> I tried Alt-f reloaded yesterday, and it worked fine, except for saving
> settings to flash.

Probably for lack of flash space, Do you remember what the error message was?

> After that, I rebooted, rewrote fun_plug, and rebooted again.
> I entered the Alt-f web gui and immediatly flashed the Alt-f firmaware.

In the Firmware Updater web page, do you remember what did you select?

-Don't erase flashed settings
-Erase all flashed settings (the box IP might change)
-Erase all flashed settings and flash new settings from defaults file (factory
settings, the box IP might change)
-Erase all flashed settings and recover the last flash settings from vendors
backup (the box IP might change)

> After the reboot, my box was isolated from the network.
> Flashing seems to be good, because pressing for 3 seconds the pwr button
> let light on the left amber led.

So the box is not bricked!

But the left led? It should be first the right led (reboot), then the left led
(shutdown)

http://code.google.com/p/alt-f/wiki/AboutButtonsAndLeds

> But my box has no IP address.
> Previously it had a dynamic IP associated to its mac address.

It depends on what happened to the settings.

On boot, Alt-F does the following:

# get an ip using the following priority:
# 1st, use kernel cmd line ip= (kexec or fonz reloaded)
# 2nd, use Alt-F defaults stored in flash
# 3d, try to read vendor sib.conf (use box stock firmware static IP)
# 4th, try to use a dhcp server
# 5th, find and use a non-used ip address from 192.168.1.254 to 230 range

As you have flashed it, 1 does not apply
As you were not able to store settings, 2 does not apply
As you were using DHCP with the vendor firmware, 3 does not apply

So, DHCP should be used. Have you checked your DHCP server (usually your
modem/router) client page? Some routers show the currently leased IP.

> It's P/N ENS323M B1G, shipped with FW 1.05 and upgraded to 1.08
> Tried every ip address in the default range 192.168.1.0/32 but nothing to.

What have you tried? ping? Or just accessing the web page?

> Suggestions ?

In the eventuality that settings become corrupted, you can try the Recovery
method outlined in the "About Leds and Buttons" web page, using the box back
button.

Please report back,
Joao

> ------------------------------
> Gabriele Vivinetto
> http://www.ict.rvmgroup.it <http://www.gabrielevivinetto.it/>

[GabrieleV]

First of all: WONDERFUL: the back button did it !
Performed the back button reset, and the lan interface was enabled, taking the reserved address from the DHCP server.
YES, it was ENABLED after the reset.
This pointed out to me a very important thing that i did'nt noticed: the lan led on my switch was turned off before the reset !!!

On Thursday, September 15, 2011 2:36:31 AM UTC+2, Joao Cardoso wrote:

Thanks. The staff is just me :-o

Great: you alone did a great job, with the help of a few newcomers, you can only do better :D !

> I tried Alt-f reloaded yesterday, and it worked fine, except for saving
> settings to flash.

Probably for lack of flash space, Do you remember what the error message was?

Mmmh, something like "can't flash ..." I saved the settings locally, and noticed that in the dropdown menu of saved setting it was listed an entry with date and time.

> After that, I rebooted, rewrote fun_plug, and rebooted again.
> I entered the Alt-f web gui and immediatly flashed the Alt-f firmaware.

In the Firmware Updater web page, do you remember what did you select?

 -Don't erase flashed settings

 

> After the reboot, my box was isolated from the network.

> Flashing seems to be good, because pressing for 3 seconds the pwr button

> let light on the left amber led.So the box is not bricked!

But the left led? It should be first the right led (reboot), then the left led
(shutdown)

Yes, it flashed too. The leds behaviour was as per documentation, so it was the reboot/powerdown/fsck ... only networking wasn't good ...
 

Please report back,

Here I am.
If you need further test or investigations, feel free to ask. I have some spare hdds to play with, so data integrity is not a probblem for me to do some testing.
The nightmare in these firmware stuffs is only to brick the box: if there is a "safeguard" to recover form EVERY flashing error, I think there is no limit to the development.

Cheers,