@zward 

A Luci app would be awesome!

Can you share the .pib files you extracted so that I can add them to the dropbox repository? There are no official .pib files for those devices you upgraded and they would certainly be of much help for people that may find it difficult to extract their own .pib.

@turboleak 

turboleak wrote

@zward 

 

A Luci app would be awesome!

 

Can you share the .pib files you extracted so that I can add them to the dropbox repository? There are no official .pib files for those devices you upgraded and they would certainly be of much help for people that may find it difficult to extract their own .pib.

I thought the .pib files were device specific, including MAC address info, etc?

The Luci-app I envision would list the PLC devices on the network, link speeds, PLC FW & HW version, allow upgrading PLC FW, add PLC device, and show/change NMK. Maybe LED control. Since open-plc-tools can work on any PLC device on the network, you could potentially do some of these things on other local devices that are not running openwrt. Probably would be good to show on the main Luci dashboard some PLC status also. All of these functions are already supported by open-plc-tools I think, so it's just a matter of making the web interface happen, including error messages from the CLI tools....which is way beyond my skill level.

@zward The PIB files are device specific, that is why you must regard them as template, where the upgrade process reads out (at least MAC, NMK) parameters from the running pib, fills the template and uses that PIB file for flashing.

@netadair Thanks for verifying. That's why I was a little hesitant to share them publicly. It does seem that you can in theory extract them from the firmware available for download since TP-Link stores them in one of the flash partitions. But I'm not sure if that is included in the downloadable firmware. If you know of a way to scrub this device-specific info, I can do so and then share.

FYI steps to extract the PIB and flash the PLC firmware in OpenWrt are available here:

https://forum.openwrt.org/t/sysupgrade-question-for-new-device-tl-wpa8630p-v2/38956/83

I had to use "br-lan" for the interface instead of "eth0" in the commands above. Note that the lowercase "p" is for extract the PIB and uppercase "P" and "N" are for flashing.

You can actually do this from another Linux machine on the network. The interface name may change, but as long as you put in the MAC address of the device you're working on, it will work. 

Thanks to this thread I succesfully updated my TL-PA8030P av1300 v2 from 2.7 to 2.10 version. Now the powerlines reach 98% of total bandwidht vs 85% of the 2.7 version and now they are very stable. I wanted to add something that happened to me. Using a tuya smart bulb I noticed that when on or in standby the speed of the powerline is reduced by 50% and internet and online gaming suffer for lag and instability. I was going crazy, I changed LAN cables from category 5 to 8, changed sockets, isolated everything, used ferrite and in the end it was a simple light bulb that I controlled with alexa in the living room...

@PowerlineFW 

Thanks for sharing the new nvm-s regularly. The upgrade was always flawless so far. This time however, while the 2.10_stripped could be installed on the PA8010P without any problem, the WPA8630P did not accept any of the two 2.10 versions, neither the non-stripped, nor the stripped. It says update failed, right after starting the process. As there is no log file whatsoever, i don't know why it is not working. I used the same PIB as last time with the 2.8 and the 2.7. Anybody else having similar experience?

@crusjeff 

Try this method:

Try updating the adapters with the tpPLC utility instead of an old powerline utility.

1. reset the WPA8630 to factory defaults (and all other 'client' or STA devices)
2. reset the PA8010 (the CCo device in the network)
3. all adapters should have joined the new network HomePlugAV (the default NMK/Security)
4. use your own pib to update the device, if you kept a backup of the 2.3 pib try using that one or use a generic pib that matches the device model, region and revision number
5. Follow the steps below exactly to update the WPA8630 (or any other adapter with WIFI extender) with the tpPLC Utility

• reset the WPA8630 device (select the Basic gear and select Reset), the device will drop out of the network
• click Refresh in the left pane, the device should show up after a few (long) seconds (the default password is admin)
• click the Advanced gear of the device and select Update. Now, it should be possible to update the PLC part of the device with pib and nvm files.
• use the the non stripped or stripped nvm file (the non stripped will almost certainly fail, but won't brick the device). When a firmware update fails try again, click the Advanced gear and select Update.

I updated several WPA8630P(EU)V2 and V2.1 devices with this procedure, but I only used the 2.3 pib file to update to 2.4, 2.6, etc. or from 2.3 to 2.10.

@Ariek 

Thanks a lot!  I've tried everything. But at the end of the day the only thing that helped was going back to the old powerline.exe utility. (I have the V1 version of the WPA8630P.) 

@PowerlineFW 

Can the US or EU .pib file be used for an AU unit?  The Australian site does not have a FW update so my units are stuck on 2.2.3.32 and this disconnecting caused by the power saving mode is driving me nuts.  2.2.3.32 lacks the functionality of turning the power saving feature off.