General OpenWrt support for Xiaomi AX3600 (Part 2)

https://openwrt.org/toh/xiaomi/ax3600#tftp_recovery

tftp recovery is the way (I know) to go back to xiaomi FW.

no luck with 160 mhz.. no disconnects. just upload speed snail slowness

yeah looks like. i tried to do this and even after reboot its back to openwrt. is this because there is only one partition while running openwrt?

root@w:~# cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00100000 00020000 "0:sbl1"
mtd1: 00100000 00020000 "0:mibib"
mtd2: 00300000 00020000 "0:qsee"
mtd3: 00080000 00020000 "0:devcfg"
mtd4: 00080000 00020000 "0:rpm"
mtd5: 00080000 00020000 "0:cdt"
mtd6: 00080000 00020000 "0:appsblenv"
mtd7: 00100000 00020000 "0:appsbl"
mtd8: 00080000 00020000 "0:art"
mtd9: 00080000 00020000 "bdata"
mtd10: 00100000 00020000 "pstore"
mtd11: 023c0000 00020000 "ubi_kernel"
mtd12: 0d240000 00020000 "rootfs"
root@w:~# fw_printenv flag_boot_rootfs
flag_boot_rootfs=0
root@w:~#
root@w:~# fw_setenv flag_boot_rootfs 1
root@w:~# fw_setenv flag_last_success 1

Now we have single/enlarged rootfs.

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ah got it.. makes sense.. so tftp might be the only way to rollback then? i was under the impression that we can switch firmware leveraging the dual partitioning. how do u handle openwrt version upgrades?

Yes use tft recovery, follow the wiki, it's updated.

Thanks. How do you find the changelog for the new snapshot versions?
Is upgrading as simple as downloading the file - xiaomi_ax3600-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin and then System > Backup/Flash Firmware > Flash new firmware image > point the file > Flash Image.
I guess the recommendation is to run service wpad stop before doing this and through wired right?

CLI Way probably is sysupgrade -k /tmp/openwrt-ipq807x-generic-xiaomi_ax3600-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin after the file has been uploaded to flash?

What's recommended? sysupgrade -v or -k

Regarding speed, I noticed that the AP likes to default to CH36 for 5GHz. Probably other APs do the same and there's congestion (wifi scan does not work). Switching to CH100 doubles the speed (with all the negatives of DFS channel):

CH36:
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.3, TCP port 5001
TCP window size:  208 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  6] local 192.168.1.8 port 57586 connected with 192.168.1.3 port 5001
[  5] local 192.168.1.8 port 57585 connected with 192.168.1.3 port 5001
[  4] local 192.168.1.8 port 57584 connected with 192.168.1.3 port 5001
[  3] local 192.168.1.8 port 57583 connected with 192.168.1.3 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]  0.0-10.0 sec  80.5 MBytes  67.4 Mbits/sec
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec  80.4 MBytes  67.3 Mbits/sec
[  6]  0.0-10.0 sec  80.6 MBytes  67.5 Mbits/sec
[  5]  0.0-10.0 sec  81.5 MBytes  68.1 Mbits/sec
[SUM]  0.0-10.0 sec   323 MBytes   270 Mbits/sec

CH100:
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.3, TCP port 5001
TCP window size:  208 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  6] local 192.168.1.8 port 58236 connected with 192.168.1.3 port 5001
[  3] local 192.168.1.8 port 58233 connected with 192.168.1.3 port 5001
[  5] local 192.168.1.8 port 58235 connected with 192.168.1.3 port 5001
[  4] local 192.168.1.8 port 58234 connected with 192.168.1.3 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  6]  0.0-10.0 sec   185 MBytes   155 Mbits/sec
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec   186 MBytes   155 Mbits/sec
[  5]  0.0-10.0 sec   181 MBytes   152 Mbits/sec
[  4]  0.0-10.0 sec   181 MBytes   151 Mbits/sec
[SUM]  0.0-10.0 sec   732 MBytes   613 Mbits/sec

you might take a hit in terms of Tx power with the usage of DFS channels too. So this could affect the clients that are far away from the router.

Power difference is 2dB

Macbook Pro 14" (M1 Pro Apple Silicon Chip) Ventura 13.2 (latest).
Firmware Version: OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r21885-f86658e269 / LuCI Master git-23.013.73089-9634086
Possible bug: Slow Upload Speed on ax 5 Ghz 80 Mhz


Wired speed is fine. Other WiFi 6 clients are running fine too.

Just in case, do you have packet steering and Software flow offloading enable? Default is disable.
After changing packet steering, reboot is needed to take effect.

Not related to the issue you describe with macbook, but enable will reduce cpu load and allow higher bandwith.

My router blinks 7s red 1s off after power on or reset.

I read openwrt guide for failsafe/reset/recovery and did a factory reset by pressing 10s reset button.
This lead to bootp requests on lan1.

I currently read https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/troubleshooting/tftpserver.
Which image would be the one to offer? How about xiaomi_ax3600-initramfs-factory.ubi?

If you connect the UART, does it potentially tell you the log of where it's stuck?
I think Robi has asked for that.

@robimarko I think you agree but (I/we) don't know what's up, but for sure something is up... Too many people following closely and with sufficient experience have bootlooped going to master.

I have not opened the device yet and would like to avoid it. But if it really helps the project, I will try. Is there a guide on opening it somewhere? I'd like to be able to properly close it again when done :slight_smile:

P.S.: it is my understanding that a 10s reset erased config to factory defaults. Can the device still be of help now?

Here's what I found: https://irq5.io/2020/08/10/custom-firmware-for-the-xiaomi-ax3600-wireless-router/
If it's still boot looping, I would think the info would be good regardless of config.

It's hard to open, there are some plastic tabs inside and some will break.
You can close it again with the screws, but some tabs will be missing inside.

@Edrikk
I also boot looped (with robi repo build r0-*, 2023-01-08-1438) and already posted the log here:
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/adding-openwrt-support-for-xiaomi-ax3600-part-1/55049/9801

Then I have read this issue was fixed, don't know in what Robi build, so maybe @joba-1 had the problematic old Robi build.

It was fixed here (2023-01-12):
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/adding-openwrt-support-for-xiaomi-ax3600-part-1/55049/9909
Don't know that old build version, only the post date.


@joba-1
Can you tell what is the build date of r0-71addb3 you had before upgrade?

[ 0.000000] Linux version 5.15.86 (ubuntu@buildbot) (aarch64-openwrt-linux-musl-gcc (OpenWrt GCC 11.3.0 r0-71addb3) 11.3.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.39) #0 SMP Fri Jan 6 22:48:19 2023

on Github it is listed as Jan 7. Looks like I have the borked version.

And since you say it is fixed and I see no screws (?) I think I keep it closed.

How did you fix it? tftp? Which image of the 4 flavors?

I actually boot looped after manually setting those env variables and updating the relevant shell script...
I couldn't hook up a UART given that it was unexpected and had family "pressures."

EDIT: Here's my updates that I made prior to boot looping when trying to move to master:

EDIT2: My next self build (again Robi's branch) after setting the above worked. It was going to master afterwards that bootlooped:

Ok, I see your point now.
I bricked both ax3600 moving from that build to the next one, but didn't had any prob. since the fix in 2023-01-12.
My bootloop log was of no use, was asked for the sysupgrade log.