SW flow says it's not compatible with QoS/SQM, but if you don't have that, I don't see any problem. Also you say the problem is only wifi, so it's not related to this.
I don't have any experience with wireless mesh, maybe others can help.
Serial access, 1st and last step.
I've only seen one, the rest have been user errors.
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Thanks for clarifying. I did saw post 34 photo but it has a red cable to where the 3.3V is (assuming that's what the 4th pin is for), hence my confusion regarding if that one should be connected or not (I guess then that in that photo the other end of the red cable is not connected to anything)
Do not upgrade the OEM firmware version.
Note down the version you got.
Avoid typing mistakes. One mistake can result your router not booting and require a serial console to recover.
If your router came with OEM firmware version 231, needs serial console outputs are hidden by default.
Good luck.
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Download the latest files from OpenWrt download site.
I have done about 10 attended Sysupgrade afterwards, so far no major issues.
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The experienced contributors here advice not to connect VCC pin.
Before seeing those advises and I connected VCC two times.
I did not notice damages as a result. But in future, I will not connect that VCC.
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Like said above, serial connection could be useful, both during the initial installation and later if any problems arise. But you can do the installation without it, if you use a modified OEM config and a USB stick like explained in wiki.
Note that by default, the wifi is disabled in OpenWrt until you enable it (after setting SSID and wifi password...) So, you need a wired connection to the router.
Note also that the OpenWrt development snapshots do not have the LuCI GUI, so you need to first connect with the SSH console (to OpenWrt default 192.168.1.1), so that you can install LuCI ( with "opkg update" and "opkg install luci".
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Yes, just connect what you need to the USB adapter, even if like me you end up using also a JST connector to ease the process.
In case sysupgrade cause soft-brick is recovery via USB stick would work (obviously for boards that initially was flashed by following USB stick installation method) or serial connection still will be required?
wouldn't even need an usb drive, but a TFTP server, you'd still need serial though.
it would probably be possible to modify the uboot boot sequence, to try to boot an initramfs from USB, before it tries the flash.
that would make the device pretty unkillable, without serial, unless you screw up uboot completely.
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Is it possible, after OpenWrt is booting OK, to set the Router to Boot from USB, if not available , then boot internal flash?
in theory, yes, it should be.
could probably even have a sequence where it starts with USB, then TFTP, then flash.
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Will it be possible that recovery sequences will only activate when power up with wps button pressed?
you can have it enabled all the time, it'll just attempt the first two, and eventually boot from the internal flash.
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So if I flashed OpenWRT by following this specific manual (step 8) I can always recover device from soft-brick without serial - is that right?
no, you can't.
Why so? Isn't uboot will try to boot from USB every time if I didn't changed variable after successful flash?
Not quite.
That would be the "normal" boot, but the "try usb first" part is the step 2 in the "SSH access initramfs" section earlier in the same message.
The bootipq is the original OEM boot, so that is wrong. But the first command sentence should be prepended to the normal OpenWrt bootcmd.
I haven't tested it, but this might work:
fw_setenv bootcmd 'usb start && fatload usb 0:1 0x44000000 openwrt-ipq807x-generic-dynalink_dl-wrx36-initramfs-uImage.itb && bootm 0x44000000; setenv bootargs console=ttyMSM0,115200n8 ubi.mtd=rootfs rootfstype=squashfs rootwait; ubi part fs; ubi read 0x44000000 kernel; bootm 0x44000000#config@rt5010w-d350-rev0'
It might be more elegant to define two new variables: usbbootinitramfs (the usb part) and openwrtboot (normal boot), and then set bootcmd as 'usbbootinitramfs; openwrtboot'.
(That would be a bit like Daniel has done for e8450/rt3200 with the pstore evaluation affecting the selected boot type.)
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could add TFTP in between, too.