[Frage] Gave up Fritzbox a few years ago. How can it be that 99.06.06 revived it?

[Melchior]

Hello,

A few years ago I gave up on my Fritzbox 7340 because it rebooted continuously. I must have tried recovery firmware, perhaps several, but I couldn't fix it.

Today I tried recovery firmware 99.06.06 and it is now up and running for 4 hours without rebooting.

Of course I like this result.

What I would like to know is how this could happen? How can it be that a Fritzbox I must have spent so much time on trying to revive it, suddenly appears to be completely fine????

Anyone has a clue?

 

[H´Sishi]

Well, probably after all that time just dusting around, the condensators and volatile RAM might have been completely discharged, forcing the box to perform a clean boot. That's why people suggest to unplug the box totally for several minutes before trying to flash / recover again.
Are you sure you tried the same firmware you used today, a few years ago?

But maybe it's just a different PC, having a different OS with a less-restricting firewall which allowed the recovery process.

 

[Melchior]

Thank you for your sound thinking.

What do you mean by 'clean boot'? Before performing the recovery it still rebooted the whole time, like every 5 minutes, some time after the last light came on. It would have flashing red lights all of a sudden and reboot.

No, a few years ago this firmware couldn't have existed. I checked when I posted on this forum for the last time and this was in 2012. The new firmware is from the beginning of 2014, so I can't have tried that firmware.

So, sure, maybe there is some change in the new firmware that somehow fixed something bad.

What I would like to know is, if something was fixed in the firmware, what could it be?

Back in 2012 I think the recovery succeeded, but it wouldn't fix the continous rebooting....

Note that is now up and running for almost 5 hours

NB: I also experimented with Freetz, so maybe the previous recovery software couldn't completely erase Freetz????

I think I also want some explanation, because I would like to experiment with Freetz again. If this recovery software can fix it when Freetz breaks, it would encourage me to try Freetz again...

 

[H´Sishi]

Well, AVM *did* fix some errors in Early 2014, especially a serious security leak - people were able to access your Fritz!Box's configuration from web even if you didn't enable that. For some people this has lead to serious phone bills because the hackers created an access to the box's SIP server from internet and did some phone calls on Box owner's costs.

Usually a Recovery should erase everything in the firmware's flash area. What exactly caused your box to reboot every few minutes a few years ago cannot be reproduced yet anymore so discussions and speculations won't lead to anything. Maybe some Freetz bits were left, maybe it was something which changed over the years (your provider, DSLAM, DSLAM's firmware) - just wild guesses:noidea:.

 

[Melchior]

Ok, I was curious if there maybe was something new in the firmware that would make a recovery more successful.

If it was not connected to dsl it would reboot as well, so I don't think it has something to do with DSLAMS or my provider. Now I just configured it to use my provider's modem.

Back then I must have also used rukerneltool to try to debrick it.