TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade

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TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
2019-10-23 19:55:48 - last edited 2019-10-25 08:14:52
Model: TL-SG108E  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version: 1.0.2 Build 20160526 Rel.34615

Hello,

 

I have a TL-SG108E and TL-SG105E switch.

 

I am trying to update the firmware on both but can't seem to do this.

 

Maybe I'm missing something simple but there doesn't appear to be an "input" box or "browse" button on the page.

 

Please see the attached images from both switches.

 

I mainly use Linux and have tried multiple devices as well as various browsers. I have also connected a couple of Win 10 devices, with no luck.

 

I have also attached a screenshot from a TP-Link user guide that appears to be similar to what I see but I have also seen images that show an input box with a browse button.

 

Can anyone offer any help or advice?

 

By the way, if I click the "ready" button, the device appears to reboot and then requires a hard reset to get it back again.


 

 

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#1
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1 Accepted Solution
Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade-Solution
2019-10-24 10:36:02 - last edited 2019-10-25 08:14:52

 

asinine wrote

Can you confirm that when you go to: switch -> system -> system tools -> firmware upgrade, there is a "browse to firmware" button, or is your page similar to the images I've posted?

 

Yes, it shows the »browse files« dialog. The TL-SG108PE I upgraded yesterday had the IP from factory settings, that's 192.168.0.1. But after upgrade it wasn't responding to this IP anymore, so I did a hard-reset (factory settings). Thenit did respond again and - surprise - the firmware was upgraded. Really weird. With TL-SG105E and TL-SG108E I had no such effects.

 

Try following after backup:

  • disconnect the switch from the network, connect only your laptop/PC to the switch,
  • set factory settings on the switch,
  • set your laptop's IP to 192.168.0.10 or some other IP in this subnet (static setting),
  • log into the web UI and click firmware upgrade., switch will reboot and should show the upgrade page then.

 

What OS and browser (plus versions) are you using?

 

 

For maintenance I use an old MacBook1,1 with a rather ancient Safari 5.1.10. You're right, in trying to be »smart« modern browsers sometimes do things not belonging to a browser at all.

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#4
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Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
2019-10-23 23:24:46

Firmware updates on TL-SG105E, 108E and 108PE is a pain. I did upgrade two 108PE just today and best practice seems to make a backup, disconnect the switch from the network, connect a laptop directly, use only static IPs on the switch & laptop and then it works. After the upgrade the 108PE didn't reload the web page and I had to hard reset it to see the login page again, but it successfully did flash the firmware image. Firmware version didn't change, but release number and date of the firmware changed. Then I re-installed the backup. All fine now.

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#2
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Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
2019-10-24 08:24:47

Thanks for the reply. I need to upgrade these damn devices due to the VLAN1 bug, which you've posted about previously.

 

The thing is, even after resetting and all the other advice, I can't get to a page that even allows me to load the firmware.

 

Can you confirm that when you go to: switch -> system -> system tools -> firmware upgrade, there is a "browse to firmware" button, or is your page similar to the images I've posted?

 

My suspicion is that the html is not loading correctly and this is why I have been trying on different browsers. It uses frames and it may be that some are being blocked on modern browsers due to security settings, or the html is not being read correctly. I've turned off all my addons, cleared cache etc.

 

What OS and browser (plus versions) are you using?

 

Thanks,

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#3
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Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade-Solution
2019-10-24 10:36:02 - last edited 2019-10-25 08:14:52

 

asinine wrote

Can you confirm that when you go to: switch -> system -> system tools -> firmware upgrade, there is a "browse to firmware" button, or is your page similar to the images I've posted?

 

Yes, it shows the »browse files« dialog. The TL-SG108PE I upgraded yesterday had the IP from factory settings, that's 192.168.0.1. But after upgrade it wasn't responding to this IP anymore, so I did a hard-reset (factory settings). Thenit did respond again and - surprise - the firmware was upgraded. Really weird. With TL-SG105E and TL-SG108E I had no such effects.

 

Try following after backup:

  • disconnect the switch from the network, connect only your laptop/PC to the switch,
  • set factory settings on the switch,
  • set your laptop's IP to 192.168.0.10 or some other IP in this subnet (static setting),
  • log into the web UI and click firmware upgrade., switch will reboot and should show the upgrade page then.

 

What OS and browser (plus versions) are you using?

 

 

For maintenance I use an old MacBook1,1 with a rather ancient Safari 5.1.10. You're right, in trying to be »smart« modern browsers sometimes do things not belonging to a browser at all.

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#4
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Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
2019-10-24 13:53:31

It is definitely some browser thing and it is a problem for tp-link easysmart switches, as people ask about it, but I literally had 0 times any problem with upgrading firmware on easysmarts. Win10 Chrome with addblock/frigate/touch vpn plugins + nod32 antivirus. I wonder, what is installed on all of your PCs, so there are so many problems (rhetorical question)...

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#5
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Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
2019-10-24 14:09:06 - last edited 2019-10-24 14:14:47

@Mitya, regarding the TL-SG108PE it's definitely no browser-related bug. My browsers don't have any add-ons and I'm neither using PCs, Windows nor virus scanners at all. The new V2 TL-SG108PE hangs up itself after upgrading the firmware and this is reproduceable with all browsers I tried on my MacBook. I can't even ping it anymore after the upgrade.

 

TL-SG108E/105E don't make such problems here, as well as older TL-SG108PE versions didn't do so in the past, too. I configured five switches in last three days for customers, namely the T1500G-10PS, two T1500G-10MPS and two TL-SG108PE. None of the former switches didn't have any problems, just TL-SG108PE.

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#6
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Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
2019-10-24 14:38:07

I'm going to go through R1D2's suggestions some time tonight when I'm home.

 

@Mitya: what do you make of the user guide that I took a screenshot (image 3 in first post) of?

 

As to what is installed on the devices, one particular attempt was from a KVM virtual machine running a very minimal install of Debian XFCE and a default Firefox, freshly installed with no addons.. Another attempt was from a dual-boot Windows/Linux laptop, with the Windows being almost untouched since I bought it.

 

One possiblility, I do have pfBlockerNG install system wide through my pfSense router. I will disable this in case this is the issue but I very much doubt it, as it should not check private (rfc1918) traffic.

 

I'm leaning toward the problem being something stupid that I am missing but it may be browser related. When I viewed the html code via firefox, the coding appeared to be written in the 90s for IE5.

 

Will report back if any of these suggestions work

 

Thanks

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#7
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Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
2019-10-24 15:30:58

@asinine 

I tried to find 108E in the office, but found only v1, which could be managed only by utility.

Maybe, you can try to use EasySmart utility, if nothing works? It seems to work properly for me at least for v1 :)

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#8
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Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
2019-10-25 08:10:41 - last edited 2019-10-25 08:19:11

tl;dr Go to upgrade page, click ready, agree to reboot, reboot and login/refresh page, THEN load firmware = success

 

OK, in my defence, I had queried a couple of times when the firmware should be loaded, and also posted that I may be missing something simple..

 

Also, to me, it's really not very intuitive to require a reboot before loading the firmware file, and in all the devices I have flashed, BIOS updates, DD-WRT, custom ROMs, I've never had to do it in this order.

 

That said, I'm reporting back that I am an ass.

 

The first time I tried to flash, I did click the "ready" button, clicked to reboot (wondering when I was supposed to load the firmware), then had no access and had to hard reset. As you pointed out it doesn't always reload the page, especially if the switch has not been reset first. At this stage I searched the internet and saw the screenshots with the page to load the firmware, so presumed that it was just not loading correctly..

 

Anyway, thank you for your clear instructions, R1D2.

 

So no browser errors this time but a simple user error

 

I have flashed both devices and now have a slightly borked network as I start to remove VLAN1 but this was to be expected

 

Thanks to you both

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#9
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Re:TL-SG105E and 108E firmware upgrade
2019-10-25 11:03:52

@asinine great that it worked now. Sometimes there are oddities - for example, TL-SG108E "save config" worked only one time after a reboot (fixed in latest firmware) and T1500G-10PS always re-assigned a port to VLAN 1 every time some other VLAN setting was changed (also fixed in latest FW), but there are always work-arounds and TP-Link eventually fixes such bugs if users report them. Have fun with your switch!

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#10
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