Linksys MR8300 when stable FW?

Maybe I have found the problem (which maybe not a problem). I do some checking and then update.

Well I did a reset and I started from the beginning and the problem of the block did not arise even by reinstalling the ipk that I had installed before. The problem is not completely clear to me but I can assume this:

The router is connected in cascade to another one of the provider in which I have set an ip in DMZ. This IP corresponds to the IP of the second router on the "wan" side and so far everything is normal. The problem is that in order not to remove connectivity to the network I had set the IP of the LAN side to both this MR8300 and an old TP-Link currently in service that will be discontinued. So there were two routers in cascade in parallel with the same WAN side Ip. This probably resulted in packet errors as the datagram contained the same IP used by two different ones. It was enough to set up another IP on the WAN side that works the same even if not in the DMZ to avoid mess with the packets and avoid losing the integrity of the packets and having problems (they are two completely different networks as IP). I have yet to try the Wifi that I see it composed as follows .:
1 radio at 2.4Ghz and 2 radios at 5Ghz, one of which for channels from 36 to 64 and the second radio from 100 to 165. For this latest radio it allows me to have only 20mw of maximum output power visible as in the image. I tried to change the country but nothing changes even leaving "default driver" always 20mW or 13dBm. Am I wrong something? Because 20mW is too low a limit for any country.

Radio 0 is 5GHz @ 30dB 1000mW
Radio 1 is 2.4GHz @ 30dB 1000mW
Radio 2 is 5GHz @ 23dB 199mW, which is lower but max power

All radios run same on my EA or MR routers running EA 19.07.4 release

My EA and MR routers run essentially the same except for more free ram on MR

However, I can say that upon initial setup, many times the max power that can be selected is less than 30dB, a reboot make 30dB selection available afterwards. I've also noticed that disabling then enabling radio also fixes max available output

Maybe you need a reboot if that was not already performed

As a matter of fact, I often reboot my router after an update or change in config which doesn't seem to respond as expected

19.07.5 is released, you should move on to this, don't forget to failover or advanced reboot to OEM partition before...

Yes, I saw the new version yesterday evening. So for update the release i can use advanced reboot to boot the linksys firmware and from the linksys firmware load the openwrt new release?. After this i will expect the boot on openwrt firmware just loaded. Only i ask if load a full firmware or a upgrade firmware? This because the 19.07.4 is already loaded previously.

You must load full firmware, as loading from OEM is not an OpenWrt upgrade process, you are effectively overwriting the existing 19.07.4

If ever you want to upgrade, it must be done from within OpenWrt, but that will upgrade the remaining OEM partition and will have lost any possibility to reboot to know OEM working state and any means to return under warranty.

It the only way I know how to avoid any bricking possibility.

Better be safe than sorry.

I've loaded the 19.07.5 . I had to reset a few times because something wasn't working either in the dns or in the routing. Tomorrow I will do other tests and I try to understand better what happens. The problem of the power of the radio module Ch100 persists and perhaps I have discovered why. With the Country in "IT" if I leave the channel management on "Auto" it collapses to 13db.

Below is the verification of the output power with manual CH setting.

Generic 802.11nac
Ch36 23dBm (200mW)
Ch40 goes on 36 with 23dBm
Ch44 23dBm
Ch48 23dBm
Ch52 goes on 48 with 23dBm
Ch56 20dBm (100mW)
Ch60 20dBm (100mW)

Qualcomm Atheros QCA9886 802.11nac
Ch100 26dBm (400mW)
Ch104 26dBm
Ch108 26dBm
Ch112 26dBm
Ch116 26dBm
Ch120 26dBm
Ch124 26dBm
Ch128 26dBm
If set, the 132 goes to 100 with 26dBm
If you set the 136 it goes on 116 or 100 with 26dBm
If I set the 140 I get "Device is not active"
If I set the 149,153,157 and 161 it works but with 13dBm (19mW)
If I set the 165 I get "Device is not active"

Hence the reason why in "auto" it remains at 13dBm, that is, depending on the channel used, the output power is modulated. For example at the moment with the selection of the channels in "Auto" it went on 149 and in fact the power is at 13dBm that is 19mW.

What I would like to understand is whether it is normal that on certain channels of the same radio module I get more power than others. From the performance point of view of the connectivity I would say no for the reason that when the router connects me with the channels with reduced power, under the same conditions and / or distance I will have a performance degradation.

@Bobcat

Have you try alternative driver for the radio module qca4019 ?

I always use default -ct drivers with auto channel and force max transmit power as per my previous post.

However, I noticed "salva" instead of "save" on one of the screens, may be you are introducing issues by trying to customize language and not staying with default English language.

Try leaving radio country code to default and not IT, mine is default

I've been able to reproduce your problem EXACTLY, with ch100 stuck to very low power and radio showing as device not active.

Do not use IT country code, switch to default, reboot and reconfigure to auto channel and force max output. You may need to reboot again to force to 30dB, radio 2 will never go more than 23dB, but 0 ad 1 should go to 30dB.

The channel will be selected automatically depending on other surrounding WiFi's, main screen will show channel and if you drill down to power setup, it should show max output of 30dB.

I've set "driver default" and country "default" and all three radio modules went to country "GB".

Radio module 0 (Ch100) Channel "Auto" comes out with a maximum of 20mW (13dBm).
Radio module 1 (Ch11) Channel "Auto" comes out with a maximum of 100mW (20dBm).
Radio module 2 (Ch36) "Auto" channel outputs with a maximum of 200mW (23dBm)
All of this is retained even after a couple of reboots.

I then removed the ath10k-firmware-qca4019ct driver. Radio module 1 (CH11) and radio 2 (CH36) were not available but module 0 (CH100) was. I have installed ath10k-firmware-qca4019 (not CT) installed and apparently it works even though I haven't tried running speed tests. As for the radio module 0 (ath10k-firmware-qca9888-ct) the non-CT driver was present in 18.06 but in 18.07 it seems to be no longer so it is not possible to know if using a non-CT or possibly more updated driver, the problem is solved. If it were a forgetfulness it would be useful to restore it to do some more tests.

I hope to look in the right place because it is not my subject of study. https://pkgs.org/search/?q=ath10k-firmware-qca9888

UPDATE:

I did a further test by changing the country by putting KE. I tried to change the various dBm to see at a distance of about 10 meters how much the signal dropped according to the output power. I tried 100.50 and 25mW and in the n signal the band decreased. I changed the country by putting US and restarting the router and the power regulation seems to work apart from radio 2 which remains off. So either there is a problem with the LUCI interface or with the driver itself.

There is an inconsistency between when I read on LUCI and with the "iw reg get" command. From LuCi I see the radios set to US while from cmd they are on GB.

global
country US: DFS-FCC
        (2402 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (5170 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (N/A), AUTO-BW
        (5250 - 5330 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW
        (5490 - 5730 @ 160), (N/A, 23), (0 ms), DFS
        (5735 - 5835 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (57240 - 71000 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)

phy#2
country GB: DFS-ETSI
        (2400 - 2483 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
        (5150 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (N/A), NO-OUTDOOR, AUTO-BW
        (5250 - 5350 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (0 ms), NO-OUTDOOR, DFS, AUTO-BW
        (5470 - 5725 @ 160), (N/A, 26), (0 ms), DFS
        (5725 - 5875 @ 80), (N/A, 13), (N/A)
        (57000 - 66000 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)

phy#1
country GB: DFS-ETSI
        (2400 - 2483 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
        (5150 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (N/A), NO-OUTDOOR, AUTO-BW
        (5250 - 5350 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (0 ms), NO-OUTDOOR, DFS, AUTO-BW
        (5470 - 5725 @ 160), (N/A, 26), (0 ms), DFS
        (5725 - 5875 @ 80), (N/A, 13), (N/A)
        (57000 - 66000 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)

phy#0
country GB: DFS-ETSI
        (2400 - 2483 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
        (5150 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (N/A), NO-OUTDOOR, AUTO-BW
        (5250 - 5350 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (0 ms), NO-OUTDOOR, DFS, AUTO-BW
        (5470 - 5725 @ 160), (N/A, 26), (0 ms), DFS
        (5725 - 5875 @ 80), (N/A, 13), (N/A)
        (57000 - 66000 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)

1

2

3

I don't force a channel, I leave channel to auto and also set power to max.

My radios auto set to country CA with driver default.

The router should auto select optimal channel output.

I setup everything with luci.

I'm looking at the syslog:

Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [    0.033920] No memory allocated for crashlog

Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [    9.534190] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/fwcfg-pci-0000:01:00.0.txt failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [    9.534237] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [    9.656521] firmware ath10k!fwcfg-pci-0000:01:00.0.txt: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [    9.658576] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA9888/hw2.0/ct-firmware-5.bin failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [    9.664449] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [    9.723002] firmware ath10k!QCA9888!hw2.0!ct-firmware-5.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [    9.723476] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA9888/hw2.0/ct-firmware-2.bin failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [    9.731285] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [    9.791266] firmware ath10k!QCA9888!hw2.0!ct-firmware-2.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [    9.791660] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA9888/hw2.0/firmware-6.bin failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [    9.799505] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [    9.869303] firmware ath10k!QCA9888!hw2.0!firmware-6.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.info kernel: [   10.178011] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: qca9888 hw2.0 target 0x01000000 chip_id 0x00000000 sub 0000:0000
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.info kernel: [   10.178058] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: kconfig debug 0 debugfs 1 tracing 0 dfs 1 testmode 0
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.info kernel: [   10.190212] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: firmware ver 10.4b-ct-9888-fW-13-8c5b2baa2 api 5 features mfp,peer-flow-ctrl,txstatus-noack,wmi-10.x-CT,ratemask-CT,regdump-CT,txrate-CT,flush-all-CT,pingpong-CT,ch-regs-CT,nop-CT,set-special-CT,tx-rc-CT,cust-stats-CT,txrate2-CT,beacon-cb-CT,wmi-block-ack-CT,wmi-bcn-rc-CT crc32 cbf49903
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.info kernel: [   10.507235] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: board_file api 2 bmi_id 0:23 crc32 b050e9d6
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   12.545378] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: 10.4 wmi init: vdevs: 16  peers: 48  tid: 96
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   12.545422] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: msdu-desc: 2500  skid: 32

Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   13.112993] ath10k_ahb a000000.wifi: Direct firmware load for ath10k/fwcfg-ahb-a000000.wifi.txt failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   13.113048] ath10k_ahb a000000.wifi: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [   13.444049] firmware ath10k!fwcfg-ahb-a000000.wifi.txt: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   13.449517] ath10k_ahb a000000.wifi: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA4019/hw1.0/ct-firmware-5.bin failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   13.451975] ath10k_ahb a000000.wifi: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [   13.520518] firmware ath10k!QCA4019!hw1.0!ct-firmware-5.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   13.521021] ath10k_ahb a000000.wifi: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA4019/hw1.0/ct-firmware-2.bin failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   13.528754] ath10k_ahb a000000.wifi: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [   13.596940] firmware ath10k!QCA4019!hw1.0!ct-firmware-2.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   13.597366] ath10k_ahb a000000.wifi: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA4019/hw1.0/firmware-6.bin failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   13.605264] ath10k_ahb a000000.wifi: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   15.473064] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: Direct firmware load for ath10k/fwcfg-ahb-a800000.wifi.txt failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   15.473130] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [   15.727814] firmware ath10k!fwcfg-ahb-a800000.wifi.txt: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   15.730022] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA4019/hw1.0/ct-firmware-5.bin failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   15.735787] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [   15.807752] firmware ath10k!QCA4019!hw1.0!ct-firmware-5.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   15.808103] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA4019/hw1.0/ct-firmware-2.bin failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   15.816097] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [   15.885375] firmware ath10k!QCA4019!hw1.0!ct-firmware-2.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   15.885766] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA4019/hw1.0/firmware-6.bin failed with error -2
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   15.893670] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: Falling back to user helper
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.err kernel: [   15.971947] firmware ath10k!QCA4019!hw1.0!firmware-6.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.info kernel: [   15.972244] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: qca4019 hw1.0 target 0x01000000 chip_id 0x003b00ff sub 0000:0000
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.info kernel: [   15.979844] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: kconfig debug 0 debugfs 1 tracing 0 dfs 1 testmode 0
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.info kernel: [   15.993655] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: firmware ver 10.4-3.6-00140 api 5 features no-p2p,mfp,peer-flow-ctrl,btcoex-param,allows-mesh-bcast,no-ps crc32 ba79b746
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.info kernel: [   16.041025] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: board_file api 2 bmi_id 0:21 crc32 bcebe54c
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   17.410166] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: 10.4 wmi init: vdevs: 16  peers: 528  tid: 102
Tue Dec 15 13:39:24 2020 kern.warn kernel: [   17.410218] ath10k_ahb a800000.wifi: msdu-desc: 2500  skid: 32

These are warnings and errors that I detect from the log. if they can be useful for possible debugging.

Is there any way to merge the two 5Ghz radios into one in the panel? ? This to see only one devices for Ch36 to Ch165. Both are 802.11nac .

1

They are genuinely two devices, the generic is part of the IPQ4019 SOC, as such they also have different drivers and different capabilities.

I wouldn't want to see them as one device, as they are really two devices, which can be individually enabled and configured for different purposes.

Maybe I am mistaken, but merging both as one goes against many basic principles and would have to be treated separately by devs, who I am sure have more mainstream issues to address.

That's because they are physically two separate devices. Thus this router being tri-band. 2 5Ghz and 1 2.4Ghz channels.

Yes it's true, it is a tri band I had not remembered. My question derives from the following case of situation. I have set both Radios to 5Ghz with the same SSID and let's assume that the devices connect to Ch40. If the Ch40 is no longer available for various reasons, can the higher channels be used (for example 149 onwards) even if they are from different radio modules?

Each radio comes with a fixed channel assignment.

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