5.4 should have improvement specific for ARM arch on how the memory is handled...
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Can anyone here give a few hints how to switch over to kernel 5.4?
is it just changing the KERNEL_PATCHVER parameter in target/linux/ipq806x/Makefile?
I'm assuming there is a better way to do it, so some tips are welcome 
make menuconfig
select "Global Build Settings"
look for and select "Use the testing kernel version"
save and exit
make defconfig
then build as you normally would
at least that works for me.
HTH
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that simple....
thanks!
Summary
Does an R7800 build exist that is flat out reliable? I mean Rock solid. If not, please recommend hardware I can use with OpenWrt that won't let me down.
Despite the (previously discussed) RAM damage that I bypassed on my R7800, I had accumulated an uptime of 23 days, despite a few hiccups over the first several days. The first hiccup required a manual power cycle. The other few I have experienced have soft-rebooted themselves. Since I've read of others experiencing these same issues here, I've chalked it up to not being my RAM problem, but due to 19.07 on the R7800.
That 23 day uptime came to an end today, unfortunately. And here's the story behind that:
Generally speaking, I normally don't generate the kind of traffic for heavy streaming or gaming. However, with the corona virus outbreak, me being a music teacher I've begun teaching from home over wifi via a Skype-like software called "Zoom." Today I had 1 to 3 of my own devices simultaneously casting video and/or audio streams between my customers. The overall call quality was great, but I suffered at least 2 complete network drops over about 4 hours of constant streaming. The drops lasted about a minute and required no manual reset (one time I can confirm the hardware rebooted itself). My customers are understanding, but for me, this is unacceptable.
I do have my build configured to log to an attached USB stick, but the "messages" file shows nothing interesting at the time of crash, unfortunately. In fact, sometimes the log is blank for 40 minutes and seems to not populate the log until after the soft reboot event.
I love the kind of control that is possible with OpenWrt. I need to find a more reliable setup in the software or hardware. Do you have any tips for me?
Is the r7800 capable of running OpenWrt more reliably? Is there a build configuration, specific driver, kernel version, or any suggested settings. Of course I've learned of some settings here and there from the abyss of this thread, such as this tidbit I threw in my /etc/rc.local
# Make the ondemand cpu governor ramp up freq faster and stay at high freq longer
echo 35 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/ondemand/up_threshold
echo 10 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/ondemand/sampling_down_factor
But from what I've read, it's the version of OpenWrt I'm using that's causing the crashes, I think (?). Please advise.
If you were to suggest me a build, such as hnyman's, is there a config file I can merge with my own? Because I need to build a custom kernel given the dead RAM I am bypassing on this model.
If there is no suitable solution, even recommend me a different router model that can robustly run OpenWrt reliably and fast.
Thanks
Sincerely,
BAZZ
P.S. I'm running ath10k-firmware-qca9984-ct. option flow_offloading 1 is also set in the firewall. I have no fancy qos packages or settings as far as I know. The router does dhcp4, passes along dhcp6, and does firewall/zoning. That's it.
By today I am testing this Wireless instability on Netgear R7800 (19.07.2 migrated from 18.06.4)
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Also having issues with wireless stability on my unit, but I'm on 019.07.0 r10860 -- Sad to hear upgrading to 19.07.2 isn't going to fix it.
If there's any way I can help, sending log files, etc. Let me know.
Yes, R7800 with OpenWrt 18.06.8 https://openwrt.org/releases/18.06/notes-18.06.8 rock stable here. Others seem to have sucess with 19.07.2 and switching from ath10k-ct to classic ath10k non-ct.
If your business relies on the router stability: why not switch to wired connections? Also you could switch to a two device configuration: one OpenWrt router with known good wired routing performance, e. g. mvebu. And one with known good wireless performance and perfect stability, e. g. ath9k if 802.11n speeds are enough for your needs.
There are a lot of options. Even switchting back to closed source manufacturer firmware is possible if your business income depends on wifi stability.
Use the snapshot with the 4.19 kernel. From @hnyman for example. It's much more stable after the @Ansuel corrections.
My current uptime is 94 days (own compilation):
root@R7800:~# cat /etc/banner
| |.-----.-----.-----.| | | |.----.| |_
| - || _ | -__| || | | || _|| _|
|_______|| __|_____|__|__||________||__| |____|
|__| W I R E L E S S F R E E D O M
-----------------------------------------------------
OpenWrt SNAPSHOT, r11218-2c60de0
-----------------------------------------------------
root@R7800:~# uname -a
Linux R7800 4.19.78 #0 SMP Mon Oct 14 10:36:02 2019 armv7l GNU/Linux
root@R7800:~# opkg list-installed | grep ath10k
ath10k-firmware-qca9984-ct - 2019-06-28-7651f5bb-1
kmod-ath10k-ct - 4.19.78+2019-09-09-5e8cd86f-1
root@R7800:~# uptime
17:52:50 up 94 days, 7:46, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
root@R7800:~#
94 days?!!!… Good to know! THNX for sharing
Thank you everyone who gave me a reply. I ended up trying a snapshot of master branch with kernel 4.19.108.
Overall it's more reliable, I'm nearly satisfied; but the 5GHz likes to conk out unexpectedly, and doesn't allow client connection until manually reloading wifi. During the time the 5GHz is down, the 5GHz ssid still comes up for wifi clients. Before doing serious diagnosis, I was wondering if you have any thoughts on that, anybody?
In the meantime, I've been experimenting with settings, and rely on the 2.4GHz when I need a rock steady connection.
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Hello,
I'm new to OpenWRT and looking to use it on my R7800 router. Could you kindly update the status on the first post above? That should give newbies like me an idea of what to expect. It was last updated on May 2018, and would be nice to see what works so far!
I would like to know if NSS hardware offload works, I see software support is present after reading posts above. Also, is 'flow offload' the same as HW/SW assisted processing/offload?
Which version do I use, the one listed on the website or hnyman's builds? I read that WiFi is still unreliable in the recent versions.
Thank you!
Software offloading works great, hardware offloading isn’t working yet (proprietary drivers, etc). Ondemand CPU issues have been fixed. Bottom line, the r7800 is doing well and is a great choice for OpenWRT.
Wifi is complicated, there tons of radio and client considerations. The vast majority I would argue are doing great with the -ct wifi drivers. I regularly update my clients and routers every ~5 years. I don’t keep around ancient legacy stuff. I don’t use fancy wIfI settings or try to run a million virtual lans. If you keep things simple- it works great right out of the box. no issues here!
If you are coming from the factory build it’s easy to load up hnyman’s build. I run the master build with the most current date. Just load the factory.img file with a wired computer and you should be well on your way.
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Thank you for the image! I'll try it out soon when traffic reduces. Do I need to backup anything apart from the settings? Firmware files, binary files, any ROM files that store things like MAC and serial number and whatnot?
The thing is, I require WiFi to be stable, as most of the devices use WiFi to connect. And a lot of traffic goes over them, so that is one of the most important considerations for me.
Things here are mostly simple, so I guess it'll work. Forgive my naivete, but is there any way I can use the wifi drivers from stock firmware, if that is even possible?
@hnyman could you kindly update the first post with the most recent improvements, Thank You!
Thank you everyone!
To my knowledge, the first message is still quite valid.
There haven't been any special improvements since 2018 regarding the non-working components(NSScores/hardware NAT/offloading, qca8k DSA switch)
All in all, R7800 is quite stable and everything "normal" pretty much works. The hardware things that require proprietary drivers (like NSS cores) still do not work.
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It might be a stupid question, but erm ..would it be possible to use proprietary drivers?
Sure, if you get Netgear and Qualcomm to release the sources for them...
(So far they haven't published the sources)
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I think the WiFi issues are pretty rare, most people don't seem to have any. I have been running OpenWrt on my R7800 since hnyman started doing builds and have not had any wireless instability issues. At my old house, I was actually getting better speeds on devices near the edge of my router's range with OpenWrt than with stock.
Thanks for the info! Is this with the CT drivers?
It was with ath10k firmware when it was the default and ath10k-ct when it became the default.
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