Recovery of flash corrupted 802.11n-based ePMP devices caused due to power interruption during a software upgrade

This topic describes the recovery procedure for ePMP1000/F180/F200/F190 devices. For ePMP3000, ePMP3000L, ePMP 3000MP and F300 devices, please see this newer article.

Problem Statement:

All ePMP radios, except the Connectorized Radios with Sync, have a single flash bank. There is a high probability that the flash bank can get corrupted when power to the radio is interrupted during a flash write, i.e. software upgrade. This is not an issue with the Sync radio since there are two flash banks in them – one active and the other inactive. The inactive bank will take over if the active bank is corrupted.

Solution:

Beginning with Release 2.6.2, it is now possible to recover an ePMP radio’s corrupted flash. In order to perform the recovery, the ePMP radio MUST be running Release 2.6.2 or newer. Recovery is not supported on devices running earlier releases or on Connectorized Radio with Sync (GPS radios).

To perform the recovery procedure, the following is needed:

  1. ePMP radio (non-GPS radio) with corrupted flash, i.e. there was a power interruption during a software upgrade and the device is no longer accessible or boots up.
  2. The ePMP radio must have already been running Release 2.6.2 (or newer).
  3. Laptop or PC with a 3rd party TFTP server (ex: Free TFTP server for Windows)

Recovery Procedure:

  1. Connect the PC/Laptop to the ePMP device (non-GPS radio).
  2. The PC/Laptop must be deployed in the same network as the ePMP device.
  3. TFTP Server IP address must be set to 192.168.1.10/255.255.255.0.
  4. Extract the ePMP recovery image (firmware.bin) from the ePMP software bundle (ePMP-NonGPS_Synced-v2.6.2.tar.gz) and place it in the TFTP Server’s root directory.
  5. Reboot the ePMP device.
  6. After successful boot-up, the ePMP device will perform the recovery procedure. The procedure will take approximately 5 minutes. Once done, the ePMP device will reboot automatically.
  7. After boot-up, the ePMP device will be accessible using the last configured IP address or default local IP of 192.168.0.2 or the fallback IP of 169.254.1.1.
  8. IMPORTANT: Software Upgrade through the GUI must be performed one more time for successful recovery in order to reflash broken image.

NOTE: This recovery procedure will work in cases where the u-boot of the radio is intact. In rare cases where the u-boot may also be corrupted, recovery is not possible.

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Could someone share a video for this procedure as i’ve totally failed to have luck with the write up.

What model are you trying to do this on? Force 300 has two boot banks. This is an older article from 2016. Really going to depend on what your issue is and what hardware.

I’m factory recovering a force 190.

Are you sure the problem is corrupted boot bank? We’ve lost a fair amount of force 190 but didn’t deploy them too often. They seemed susceptible to power and grounding issues.

hola hay algún vídeo para ver como recupear los equipos ?

If possible please share a detail video I also have same problem. I can’t recover force 180 and force 200