[Commotion-discuss] CW Firmware on a Ubiquiti Picostation M2HP

Josh King jking at chambana.net
Tue May 17 21:35:27 UTC 2016


Hey Nicolas,

I wasn't able to get the picostations until pretty late in the day, so
I don't know if I'll have information for you tonight. If not, I'll do
my best to get you some feedback as soon as I can tomorrow.

About the Unifi APs, I don't think we support any of their AC hardware
yet due to driver issues.

On Tue, 2016-05-17 at 14:45 +0200, Nicolas North wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> That would be fantastic thank you so much!
> 
> I can try anything you may suggest tonight.
> 
> Thank you very much again in advance!
> 
> 
> Nicolas
> 
> 
> 
> From: J. Heretic <jking at chambana.net>
> Reply: J. Heretic <jking at chambana.net>
> Date: 17 May 2016 at 14:41:58
> To: Nicolas North <star at nikksno.io>, commotion-discuss <commotion-dis
> cuss at lists.chambana.net>
> CC: Ben West <ben at gowasabi.net>
> Subject:  Re: [Commotion-discuss] CW Firmware on a Ubiquiti
> Picostation M2HP 
> 
> > Hi Nicolas, 
> > 
> > I'm going to grab some picostations from the office today and try
> > again 
> > to reproduce the problem you're having. 
> > 
> > On Tue, 2016-05-17 at 11:13 +0200, Nicolas North wrote: 
> > > Hi there everyone! 
> > > I'm very sorry for the really late reply but I've been a little
> > held 
> > > back lately by all of the difficulties I've encountered while 
> > > starting this project that I really believe in, so I've been
> > working 
> > > on it on my own for a few weeks to see what I could figure out.
> > Key 
> > > updates are as follows: 
> > > I've found a way to "unlock" / "unbrick" ubiquiti picostations
> > and 
> > > bullets and have been able to do so several times. For now my 
> > > experience has always been: unbox them, try installing commotion 
> > > firmware immediately from the web interface as per the
> > instructions, 
> > > device installs and reboots, seemingly gets stuck in limbo [no 
> > > bootloop but not showing up in any network scan with or without
> > dhcp 
> > > under any subnet], enter tftp, try reinstalling AirOS, device
> > reboots 
> > > into endless bootloop, enter tftp again to flash cw firmware only
> > to 
> > > get 512 firmware check error. The solution for me has
> > consistently 
> > > been to install unifi on the devices as per ubiquiti instructions
> > [a 
> > > procedure that is unsupported but explained on their website]
> > via 
> > > tftp [I can provide the link if anyone is interested] [always
> > got 
> > > them working on unifi like this btw], then enter tftp again and 
> > > install AirOS 5.1.2, and only then was I always able to actually 
> > > install cw firmware via AirOS web interface and working as
> > instructed 
> > > in the cw howtos. The devices reboot perfectly and fully
> > functionally 
> > > in cw and except for my first attempt [see last mail] where I
> > had 
> > > problems with LuCI, I was always able to do the initial setup 
> > > perfectly. The major problem here which had been haunting my
> > dreams 
> > > [irony, but true] for the last few weeks is that upon the first 
> > > reboot the devices completely loose their mesh and WiFi configs
> > and 
> > > they seem to be missing key packages suck as olsr and such. A 
> > > possible explanation for this is that after the cw install only
> > 2% of 
> > > space is left on the device's NAND for some reason I have yet to 
> > > understand. A quick df -h via ssh reveals the partitions all
> > together 
> > > make up less than 50MB although this also appears to be the case
> > with 
> > > stock AirOS and Unifi at least on my devices. 
> > > I've been searching everywhere for a solution to this problem
> > and 
> > > I've found that the standard openwrt image is 50MB but being
> > these 
> > > always bin files I've never been able to expand their partitions 
> > > before flashing them. 
> > > I've also tried installing stock owrt following metamesh's
> > directives 
> > > from a link in the last email but although I could install it 
> > > [through the super complex procedure listed above] on both
> > devices I 
> > > still got 98% of storage space used and couldn't get all
> > packages 
> > > installed as per their tutorial! 
> > > I really don't understand how this is happening given that
> > except 
> > > from the possible firmware locks introduced recently I'm
> > basically 
> > > getting extremely common deviceS in the mesh world and installing
> > cw 
> > > or even stock openwrt onto them. I'd really like to know what
> > I'm 
> > > doing wrong. I've seen your new thread about this ubiquiti issue
> > but 
> > > I don't understand how I could even try using other routers on
> > the cw 
> > > download page if they're not weather proof. Apart from the fact
> > of 
> > > course that I risk getting even more devices that will end up
> > bricked 
> > > or not fully functional after all of the money I've already
> > spent. 
> > > Should I try with unifi AC AP pros? Are they supported by cw? 
> > > I really want and need to start this project. It'll be a very 
> > > profound achievement I think and there are already tens of
> > people 
> > > with more every day asking me when it'll be online and I cannot 
> > > accept that it's not working or even worse that I'm so close such
> > as 
> > > having it only work until a reboot or a power loss related hard 
> > > reboot. 
> > > I will happily reward any dev or specialist at cw or in this 
> > > community with a 100€ bounty / donation if this can help [all I
> > can 
> > > afford right now] that will be able to help me get online by any
> > mean 
> > > in a timely fashion and in a cost effective way, with more small 
> > > donations to the project every month in the future from the tip
> > jar 
> > > we'll establish here on location. 
> > > This has to happen now :) 
> > > Thanks in advance and truly sincere kudos for the amazing work
> > on 
> > > this fantastic project. I really appreciate all of your help on
> > this 
> > > as well of course and I definitely look forward to working with
> > you. 
> > > Thanks again! 
> > >   
> > > Nicolas 
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-- 
Josh King
PGP Fingerprint: 8269 ED6F EA3B 7D78 F074 1E99 2FDA 4DA1 69AE 4999
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