OpenWrt 21.02.0 Fourth release candidate

Release and security announcements
104

There's no reason to suspect it's in any way changed, it's the same (closed source, shitty) driver.

105

It's not an issue with the mwlwifi driver, there is a bug in 21.02 related to the firmware blob or something else that causes wifi to stall. The old 19.07.8 branch and the current Master branch with 5.10 kernel seem to be unaffected by this issue.

106

Thanks for the update!
So the latest snapshot should work fine?
I'm still on David's wonderful build but its kinda old now....

107

Yea snapshots based off Master work fine. 21.02 not so much the wifi stalls a lot. There is another thread with 21.02-rc4 with the wifi firmware replaced with an older version that seems to fix it (I've been testing it a couple days), but not enough testing has been done yet to really confirm it's the fw.

108

Overall

So similar to RC3 and includes few developments, thanks for contribution. :clap:‍‍
Need to show real performance of the VR200
Looks like drops problem fixed substantially.

Connection LEDs

  • [ ] LEDs are dimmed except USB and Refresh. Similar to RC3-RC2 as I mentioned
  • :white_check_mark: :clap:‍‍ Also have good news, it's configured well according to the connections than RC3. Thank you

Wi-Fi

The connection quality varies by every encryption of Wi-Fi and the best one is no encryption
It's similar to RC3, getting better for every release from RC2 for each device

WPA3-SAE

802.11w Management Frame Protection:
Required

WPA2-PSK

802.11w Management Frame Protection:
Disabled

WPA2-PSK/WPA3-SAE mixed mode(strong security)

802.11w Management Frame Protection:Disabled

WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK mixed mode(strong security)

WPA-PSK

  • [ ] Not usable speed, can hardly surf on OpenWrt interface

No Encryption (open network)

Cable connection

Test system

Those all test result done one device, next to router! Wi-Fi & Ethernet
But interestingly, some different devices give worse than those results. Selected a Linux laptop which I've gotten the best result overall
I've to say that some results have changed with use of the same device. So got worse result first time usage, I think router get stable itself by time.

4 Likes
109

I've to say that some results have changed with use of the same device. So got worse result first time usage, I think router get stable itself by time.

My experiences follow yours. Especially the part about a device may be having issues but then corrects itself. However, failover to mobile data can be slow. So slow that the Android device will show "connected without internet". Reverting back to an earlier WiFI FW version helps but the wireless performance is not the same as 19.7.08.

There is a WRT3200 thread where reverting back to an earlier FW revision helps tremendously.

1 Like
110

I'm willing to bet the LED issue is because the physical "pins" aren't defined as outputs, but are "floating". Or something like that.

1 Like
111

21.02 RC4 successfully installed on a Netgear WNDR 3700v4 (keeping config from RC3)
Still have the 8MB image size issue.

112

You probably meant WRT3200, right?

1 Like
113

Yep! Fat finger syndrome!

114

Thanks for clarifying!

115

Thanks for your replies, unfortunately irqbalance made no difference.
Pinging the device i had 0 timeouts, pinging the modem i had 0 timeouts, pinging any wan IP gave me frequent timeouts.

116

How can I manage it?

117

To clarify further, I've now been running a master snapshot for a few days and the wifi stalls have not occured on my WRT32X, so it's clearly a 21.02 related but that hasn't been fixed.

I'm just using the 5.4 kernel right now, not sure how to easily upgrade to the 5.10 kernel without compiling myself although I know many mvebu users that run master branch use it.

118

Peoples findings seem to vary

1 Like
119

Interesting, that testing is more involved than my browsing around on a phone, laptop, and a MS teams meeting. WiFi with that stuff is definitely better on master than 21.02-rc. I’ll have to try that too though and prepare to be disappointed.

edit: after 2 more days of testing I can confirm WiFi is much better on a Master snapshot. 21.02 is a disaster, stalls out frequently. 21.02 was branched what, 6 months ago? At this point there must be a ton of improvements on master. Either way it's definitely a bug in 21.02.

1 Like
120

Tested with TP-Link TL-MR6400 v5 and it's working fine for a few days now. The LTE modem on that device must use QMI and the end user experience would be complete if the Luci QMI module (luci-proto-qmi) was preinstalled too. So, would it be possible to get that in the official images?

121

21.02 release appears to be waiting for ipv6 flow offload problems to be fixed:
http://lists.openwrt.org/pipermail/openwrt-devel/2021-August/036023.html

Anyone know if this is reasonably fixable in 21.02, or does it require a major evolution like moving all targets to the 5.10 kernel or something? My curiosity is whether or not there are near term prospects for a final 21.02 release. If not, I'll stop waiting and flash 19.07.8 on some routers I plan to gift to someone. The routers in question are not DSA targets in 21.02, so upgrade won't be too confusing for the recipient.

To be clear, I'm not criticizing. I think the 21.02 release candidates have been an inspired step toward getting the bugs shaken out of DSA implementation especially, but also other less tested changes that have built up in the main snapshot tree since 19.07. And I'm looking forward to a final 21.02 release - it's just a timing thing for me.

122

So its older cheap non-MT76 devices anyway, so HW offloading isnt an option anyway. Did you tests, whether soft offloading for the devices in question has its reasonable performance gain at all, worth these thoughts?

Or why not give them away as 21.02 with offloading unchecked?
In case it gets fixed, the receipient could then checkmark a clickbox and gain a few percent of performance. The recipient would need to do occasional updates anyway, effectively become active as OpenWRT admin.

1 Like
123

Ouch. I wouldn't call an EA8500 found used on ebay for $50 shipped "cheap." A screaming bargain maybe, and it's a bit long in the tooth I'll grant you, but still quite capable hardware: 1.4 GHz dual core ipq8064 ARMv7; 512 MB memory, 128MB flash, Wave2/WiFi5, 4x4 MU-MIMO. It's a good friend. Were they not, I'd have found them a used $20 Archer C7 :wink: .

But your point is taken. Yes, I could install 21.02rc4 and just uncheck the offload boxes I suppose.