oh god that was pretty stupid on my part. youre right
yeah, I not even thought about extracting xiaomi-4a.zip, i'm an idiot haha. but anyways, I did everything again, following your instructions (this time I flashed the openwrt-ramips-mt76x8-xiaomi_mi-router-4a-100m-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin file) but now after the mtd command, the router enters into a bootloop. I probably borked the openwrt installation by flashing the xiaomi-4a.zip file. need to be more careful next time. thanks for your help guys.
p.s : again I was able to debricked the router by following hoodys guide. the router is working again with the stock firmware.
Before writing(flash) the openwrt on the device do cat /proc/mtd, copy and paste that result here so that we can see if this indeed the MIR4AC layout as expected by the firmware.
root@XiaoQiang:~# cat /proc/mtd
dev: size erasesize name
mtd0: 01000000 00010000 "ALL"
mtd1: 00020000 00010000 "Bootloader"
mtd2: 00010000 00010000 "Config"
mtd3: 00010000 00010000 "Factory"
mtd4: 00010000 00010000 "crash"
mtd5: 00010000 00010000 "cfg_bak"
mtd6: 00100000 00010000 "overlay"
mtd7: 00c60000 00010000 "OS1"
mtd8: 00b00000 00010000 "rootfs"
mtd9: 00240000 00010000 "disk"
That is not the same as the MIR4AC international/global edition as what this firmware is intended to (mtd6 is different, must be 00200000), you sure that is a MIR4AC, what does the box and label on the device say? It looks more like a MIR4A you have there.
this is the label on the box:
Very interesting, that is 2 months newer than my one 09/2021, wonder if it is your unbricking that changes the firmware layout for mtd6. Not sure whether flashing the non-international/global version will work - https://openwrt.org/inbox/toh/xiaomi/xiaomi_mi_router_4a_gigabit_edition , but at your own risk.
Looking @ https://hoddysguides.com/xiaomi-debrick-tools-all/ it does look like the debricking is turning the device into the Chinese version and not the international version as the recovery ROMs for the Gigabyte version are both Chinese.
4A GIG Chinese
bddbe28e11bd7145e9ee1aa40c17f2256def64eec3ec46070bc34f172f1debb9
4A GIG Chinese
666ea7d3a91fe950331f75a517ceac6e98015a895fb81504ad0b982dc64f400a
1 Like
What is the version of Xiaomi 4A (100mb) firmware currently installed after unbricking?
If it has been converted back to chinese variant as suggested by @diepeterpan , perhaps you need to consider the instructions ?
https://openwrt.org/toh/xiaomi/mi_router_4a_mir4a_100m#installation
ry7itt5r does have a gigabit one, not the 100m one. But it is now the Chinese firmware layout and not international global one, use https://openwrt.org/inbox/toh/xiaomi/xiaomi_mi_router_4a_gigabit_edition and NOT https://openwrt.org/toh/xiaomi/mi_router_4a_mir4a_100m#installation
Unless I am mistaken, I don't believe the DVB4230GL is the Gigabit edition though from the label provided by ry7itt5r ?
There is a model 'R4AC' which is 100mb model with 64MB RAM with SKU: DVB4230GL according to Google searches. Xiaomi are terrible at labelling their products and causing confusion....
The only recovery firmware on Hoddy's website for the 100mb model will be chinese firmware I guess.
1 Like
so I got openwrt working somehow. this is what I did:
-
followed point's 1 and 2 from this guide to debrick the router https://forum.openwrt.org/t/xiaomi-r4ac-problems-installing-openwrt/82083?u=ry7itt5r. basically consist in downgrading the firmware to 2.18.28 using the MiWifi Repair Tool and then upgrading to 2.18.58 using the web interface (got 2.18.50 from here https://miuirom.org/miwifi/mi-router-4a)
-
Followed hoodys guide but this time instead of flashing the openwrt build made by @WereCatf, flashed the firmware for the Xiaomi Mi Router 4A (MIR4A) 100M https://openwrt.org/toh/xiaomi/mi_router_4a_mir4a_100m#installation (that would be openwrt-21.02.3-ramips-mt76x8-xiaomi_mi-router-4a-100m-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin) like @diepeterpan suggeted.
after rebooting from the flashing proccess. the router enter a bootloop again and thought it was bricked, so I went (without hope) to do some chores and whe I came back the two leds were blue and could enter luci through 192.168.1.1. openwrt is working (for now everything seems to be working fine).
so I guess that all of this turned the router into the chinesse version of it???.
keep in mind that I've been messing with this the whole night (flashing and reflashing, unbricking etc). tried again and again, tried diferent guides. so I'm probably mixing up some details. if you are going to try this do it at your own risk.
thanks to everyone for the help
1 Like
I'm likely going to get an R4AC soon (probably international). I'd very much like to convert it to chinese (as the chinese verion is better supported).
I got two questions:
-
How do I know I have the international version? Only by cat and looking at the size of mtd6?
-
What's the easiest way to convert it into a chinese MIR4A? Hoody something?
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. I want to run stable Openwrt v19 releases and not snapshot or v21, so that's why I REALLY prefer converting it to chinese which is well supported already.
Check whether the web UI is in chinese or English.
1 Like
Great! Thank you so much!
That leaves the second question:
What's the easiest way to convert it into a chinese MIR4A 100M? Hoody something?
Cheers!
Only suggestion is review this older post:
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/openwrt-bricks-xiaomi-mi-router-4a-mir4ac-100m-international-version/125759/53
But very early posts suggest flashing 2.18.28 chinese firmware bricks the router...... so ensure you have a copy of 3.05 english fw.
btw, snapshots since 3rd July now support Global International version thanks to @WereCatf
https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=commit;h=1a8c74da709190e5157af9f5c2502b600f6273bb
https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ramips/mt76x8/openwrt-ramips-mt76x8-xiaomi_mi-router-4a-100m-intl-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
(Snapshots do not include LuCI)
Perhaps only a matter of time before it appears in 22.03 and may be backported to 21.02.
1 Like
Hi ry7 amd others debricking R4AC to chinese version.
After converting the router to chinese, have you noticed any problems with it? Unstable? Wifi issues? Wifi bands not working? Bad range? Crashes? Hardware somehow unsupported? Errors?
I really want to use stable Openwrt v19 so I need to go chinese, but I'm afraid I'm going to do some permanent damage. Like erase the parameters individual to the router or create some kind of incompatibility issues.
Thanks to you and everyone else figuring this stuff out. You're the best! 
Thanks! I'd love to be on v19 so I got no choice. (I found that it's fast, stable and supports mediatek hardware well without being heavy on resources.)
Small followup question. I see that openwrt v19 branches are still incoming. Like 19.07.10 that was released recently. Does this mean that the "xiaomi 4a 100m international" SNAPSHOT is going to turn into a stable release when and if a new 19 branch comes out? Like 19.07.11?
In that case maybe I don't need to convert to the chinese version.
openwrt-19.07 is is done and dusted, sent off EOL. Even if it wouldn't be, new device additions (backports to 21.02.x, the current stable, maybe as an exception, rather than the rule - oldstable, no) wouldn't have been accepted either way.