Linksys MR8300 fails to boot with new 24.10 branch and available development build

For Developers
1

I am not sure if this is an already known issue as I googled it and found no cases.
I have pulled the new 24.10 git branch and built my custom firmware for a number of routers. The Linksys MR8300 failed to boot, it is headless so I cannot see any errors, I can only recover it on the alternate firmware with the 3 on/off procedure. It fails to come up also with a configuration reset.
To extend my troubleshooting I flashed too the nightly build available here (default configuration): https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ipq40xx/generic/ with the same result.

A different model with 24.10, an ASUS AX4200, instead had a serious issue with PBR configured for a wireguard VPN. Pings took between 30 seconds and one minute to go through the VPN, so I had to revert to my 23.05 build since it is a live router and I had to get the VPN back up and running quickly, thus I could not further my troubleshooting.

I tested also an EA8300 with my 24.10 build and it worked fine, however this is just a wifi repeater and the most it does is multiple APNs on different VLANs.

2

Pings from router itself or from the client in LAN?

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3

Can you log the boot with a serial link? That's the only way to monitor the early stages of booting.
I haven't the device presently to test myself.

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4

I am sorry, but it is tucked away in a remote location and the most I can do is to turn it on/off with a sonoff switch.

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5

If the question relates to the PBR+wireguard, pings to 1.1.1.1 from one client on the vlan going through the remote wireguard server in another country that is the default route for this vlan. The configuration is as follows:

client ---- vlan ---- AX4200 (PBR + wireguard VPN) default route with SNAT to remote wireguard server ---- remote wireguard server with NAT from wgVPN to internet ---- internet

6

And traceroute or mtr says what?

7

Today I will reflash 24.10 on the AX4200 and I will run ping and traceroute comparisons between 23.05 and 24.10. Is there any other test you would like me to run?

8

Dont experiment with your main router, repeat wg setup on an x86 vm with another vm client.

9

If you're running the latest snapshot available on mr8300, that would be r28085.
Mine boots and runs fine on r28072 from 3 days ago. That means if something broke on the software side since then, one of the 13 commits in between is responsible. The thing is most of them are platform specific or related to apk, I don't see how they would break boot on ipq40xx.

I'll flash latest snapshot and see if it breaks.

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10

The 24.10 branch gives me r28027.

Is 192.168.1.1. still the default IP? Because that is what I ping and it does not respond after flashing 24.10 and latest snapshot with a configuration reset. All good with 23.05 up to latest r24138

11

There's been no change to default IP, still is 192.168.1.1.

Unfortunately, firmware-selector seems to be crapping itself at the moment so I can't update until it's back in business (gives up with "Init" error).
I usually update snapshot once or twice a week so I believe I would have run into that boot issue if it were a bug in the code. I haven't seen a boot issue on that device in forever. Maybe something's wrong with images currently built by ASU?

12

Actually there was a kernel issue back in 2023 with 23.05 when all ip40xx based devices failed to boot. Fortunately Linksys have dual boot recovery.

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13

It may sound stupid, but does the client have an IP? Set a static IP to the client (ie 192.168.1.20 for example) than ping the router. If ping does not respond than the router is the culprit.

14

No worries. Yes the client has of course an ip in 192.168.1.0/24 which is not 192.168.1.1. And the target router is turned on too.

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15

Another snapshot just came out. You may give a try.
I'll be able to test on a MR8300 by the end of the month. In the meantime the issue may be solved.

16

Just updated to said snapshot. So from r28072 to today's r28114, my MR8300 still boots/works fine.

@ezplanet : This is the link to the generated image if you want to test with a known working one: https://sysupgrade.openwrt.org/store/89070f0c2d9f11d47dbd549e35c54297/openwrt-dd842a9ecbf3-ipq40xx-generic-linksys_mr8300-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
There's no custom config script but a bunch of extra packages that you may or may not need:

ath10k-board-qca4019 ath10k-firmware-qca4019-ct-htt ath10k-firmware-qca9888-ct-htt base-files busybox ca-bundle dnsmasq dropbear firewall4 fstools kmod-ath10k-ct kmod-gpio-button-hotplug kmod-leds-gpio kmod-nft-offload kmod-usb-dwc3 kmod-usb-dwc3-qcom kmod-usb-ledtrig-usbport kmod-usb3 libc libgcc libustream-openssl logd mtd netifd nftables odhcp6c odhcpd-ipv6only ppp ppp-mod-pppoe procd procd-seccomp procd-ujail uboot-envtools uci uclient-fetch urandom-seed urngd wpad-openssl apk-openssl block-mount blockd coreutils-nohup curl drill e2fsprogs ethtool hostapd-utils htop iptables-nft ip-bridge kmod-fs-ext4 kmod-usb-storage-uas libudev-zero luci-app-advanced-reboot luci-app-adblock luci-app-attendedsysupgrade luci-app-banip luci-app-bcp38 luci-app-commands luci-app-ddns luci-app-filebrowser luci-app-hd-idle luci-app-https-dns-proxy luci-app-irqbalance luci-app-openvpn luci-app-package-manager luci-app-sqm luci-app-sshtunnel luci-app-usteer luci-app-wifischedule luci-app-wol luci-proto-bonding luci-proto-wireguard luci-ssl-openssl mii-tool nano owut usbutils usteer wget-ssl
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17

Good.
Anyone to try the latest 24.10 snapshot ?

18

This is weird. It does not work with my MR8300.

Today I flashed/reset config first using 23.05 from here: https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/23.05.5/targets/ipq40xx/generic/

This was to make sure there weren't other issues on the network. With plain 23.05 as above I could ping to 192.168.1.1 and connect to the router with ssh.

Then I flashed the snapshot taken from your exact link above. Nothing. I waited about 5 minutes for the router to show up. From the managed switch I could see the network connection was up and running. But no response from my many pings to 192.168.1.1.

From the switch log, normally when most openwrt routers boot (including this one), I can see the switch port going up, then down again for a few seconds and then up again. This second time is usually when the LAN interface is configured with its assigned address and that is when the router starts responding to pings. But when I flash 24.10 or your snapshot I can see the switch port going up only once (after a flash or a subsequent power cycle), which means the boot process does not go further and it does not reach the point where the LAN interface is configured.

I double checked too that the ethernet cable from the switch is plugged into lan1 (router LAN port 1)

Is there any way to tell if we have different hardware versions?

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19

Got console output of that?

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20

Hardware version is written on the label under the router. Mine is v1.1
What is your alternate firmware (so the version of the firmware from which your are flashing the router)?