OpenWrt support for Linksys MX4200

Already tried both software and hardware offloading. Not helping. Will try NSS build later today. Will also try with default config incase some setting I’m putting in which could be causing the lower wifi throughput.

Some quick update on my build release:

  1. The version# is fully aligned with official snapshot instead of r0-xxxxx, easier for bug reporting.
  2. thanks to change on upstream, now foss build can install kmod without any extra work. for nss, just sideload the kmods.tar.gz per instruction. This is for both opkg and apk.
  3. Set up auto build, hopefully it goes well. New release on every Tuesday and Saturday.
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edit: had to flash both partitions back to stock, do a factory reset using the Linksys router interface, then flashed openwrt on the 2nd partition again and now everything works. How strange.

I'm running arix builds, getting udhcpc: received DHCP NAK in my logs with latest build and I'm unable to receive a DHCP assignment from my ISP on WAN. I tried downgrading to older builds, but they all seem to do the same thing. I switched it out to my RT4230W and did not have DHCP issues.

Linksys stock firmware also works if I switch back to boot partition 1.

flashing both partitions back to stock and doing a factory reset, then I'll try openwrt NSS again and see if that fixes anything or not.

I grabbed the latest FOSS out there:
qualcommax-foss-snapshot-r28199-1bdb6d8404

And installed it over the existing FOSS build I had from maybe a week previous.

The unit seems to have gone out to lunch/disappears.
The blue lights blink as expected, but network communication to the device is gone.
It is unclear what happened, since I can't find it/communicate with it.

I don't know if anyone else has seen this yet, or if it is just something with my set up that caused it, but just in case, be careful, and backup your config!

@arix is it possible to have a branch based on 24.10-SNAPSHOT (and later on 24.10) or is it too much trouble until the support for mx4300 is officially added to openwrt?

Is there somewhere that has the step-by-step flashing instructions? Or in this thread somewhere? I have the link to those builds on Github.

this is the gist of it:
Finally, installation instructions are:

  1. Open Linksys Web UI - http://192.168.1.1/ or http://10.65.1.1/ depending on your setup.
  2. Login with your admin password. The default password can be found on a sticker under the device.
  3. To enter into the support mode, click on the “CA” link and the bottom of the page.
  4. Open the “Connectivity” menu and upload the squash-factory image with the “Choose file” button.
  5. Click start. Ignore all the prompts and warnings by click “yes” in all the popups.
  6. The Wifi radios are turned off by default. To configure the router, you will need to connect your computer to the LAN port of the device.

theres also some slightly outdated info about installing to the alternate partition and using opkg to install luci, which is no longer required:
https://www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/comments/1fgta78/guide_to_installing_openwrt_on_the_20_linksys/

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Once 24.10 hits RC I'll build/release, 24.10 snapshot seems unnecessary though.

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ok so i just flashed the build myself and no problem.

Actually the guide is wrong on dual partition/alternated partition.

The router has 2 firmware partitions. The above instructions will upload the OpenWRT firmware to your current partition and you can use that without modifying the second partition. If you want to load the OpenWRT onto the second partition, the instructions are:

as current flash, either from stock or openwrt, always goes to THE OTHER partition.

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Thanks for checking.
I was able to get it back by doing an OpenWRT factory reset/reset at boot.
It brought it back to 192.168.1.1, which allowed me to set it back up.

I am not sure what happened that caused it to disappear from my network, but no matter, since I was able to get it back.

Sorry for the noise!

Are the instructions on installing to an alternate partition really outdated? I think this step was required just a few weeks ago. At least at that time, if one skipped this step an attempt to install sysupgrade file from within openwrt would fail. I made that mistake (on mx4200) and I had to force router to switch boot partition (i.e. boot into pre-update version of openwrt) before installing factory image into the other partition.

Any NSS improvement for you? I noticed that MX4300's WIFI throughput varies widely for different AX WiFi clients in my environment.

Hi Arix thanks for your work, question, the autobuild is using your fork? or pulls directly from the openwrt main branch + testuser7 patch for MX4300?? in the latter, so you will not update anymore your fork right?

this.

and check build branch.

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Take this as one anecdote, but I didn't do any of those instructions relating to partitions when I got my MX4300 (LN1301).

Just went to the "CA" support page in the stock firmware, uploaded OpenWrt's -factory.bin file, rebooted into the limited OpenWrt and then flashed the full -sysupgrade.bin and that was it.

It's very likely that I still had the factory firmware on the "alternate" partition for a time, but the next time I did a -sysupgrade.bin upload it would have gone to that alternate partition anyways. That's how it works, right? (The alternate partition is meant as a 'backup' in case the 'current' one repeatedly fails to boot, and will in fact switch partitions to attempt to boot after a number of failures.)

During initial setup just flash factory.bin from stock rom and done. No limit on the newly installed openwrt and absolutely no need to flash sysupgrade.bin again as this wipes the stock rom and, does nothing for current openwrt installation.

I highly recommend keep the stock linksys rom as backup. I soft bricked the router several times, once the ip was set to "192.168.1.255" and the reset button did nothing in openwrt, so I just don't trust openwrt for failsafe.

As for update, I would backup settings with sysupgrade,
reboot to Linksys rom(luci-app-advanced-reboot), flash factory.bin and restore.

backup-command:
        -b | --create-backup <file>
                     create .tar.gz of files specified in sysupgrade.conf
                     then exit. Does not flash an image. If file is '-',
                     i.e. stdout, verbosity is set to 0 (i.e. quiet).
        -r | --restore-backup <file>
                     restore a .tar.gz created with sysupgrade -b
                     then exit. Does not flash an image. If file is '-',
                     the archive is read from stdin.
        -l | --list-backup
                     list the files that would be backed up when calling
                     sysupgrade -b. Does not create a backup file.
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The foss build wifi throughput was pretty low <400mbps. The wifi throughput on the NSS build is almost double 500-800 range on the first 2x2 5ghz radio. The 2nd 5ghz 4x4 stream radio throughput is lesser for some reason on the iPhone and iPad. I tried multiple WiFi configurations.

I have 4 units, one is a base router +firewall +dhcp +adguardhome +unbound, another is a mesh 802.11s client, another two are dump APs wired to the 2nd router (802.11s client). VXLAN is used to tunnel guest network over the lan network from base router to all others.
LAN MTU is 1500, vxlan adds 50 bytes of overhead so vxlan and guest network gets auto set to 1450 MTU. I have reduced it by another 10, to 1440 to give it some headroom. At 1450, the onvif feed from the Tapo cameras kept glitching.

I was not able to get WDS working correctly. The dnsmasq kept crashing for some reason. It could be related to the fact that I’m running two dnsmasq instances, one each for lan and guest network, since I wanted static IPs across both networks.

802.11s back haul link operates at around 2000mbps link speed, with iperf showing 1.1 - 1.3 gbps throughout. 802.11r/k/v is enabled and working fine on the 1st 2x2 stream 5ghz radio.

2.4ghz was giving abysmally low wifi throughout of 5-10mbps even if I was standing next to the router, even if I use force 40mhz/noscan option. I was able to get it upto ~50mbps on the iPhone (20Mhz width only for some reason) by disabling AX on the 2.4ghz radio.

DTIM interval is set to 3 for all WiFi interfaces and cell density set to ‘High’

Running stable for the last 2 days now. Let’s hope it stays like this.

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Has anyone recently see this error? I'm been using arix's firmware. With new apk firmware, "apk add" will returned "ADB integrity error (returned 2)". With old opkg firmware, "opkg update" now returned "wget returned 8"

I am stumped with crashes I have when trying to run WDS or 802.11s on a pair of MX4200s and I hope someone can help. Actually, I have a problem with 2 pairs of MX4200s at different locations and they exhibit the same symptoms: after a while (could be 10 minutes, could be 20 hours) the main router hangs and needs a hard reboot. I think I can ping it from WAN side but it does not hand out IP addresses and does not do routing for clients that already have IPs. I think things are better when I disable WDS and/or 802.11s -- I have not tested too long but I had no crashes so far with WDS/802.11s disabled. I must admit I have not waited too long because I am eager to get the satellite router connected.

I would appreciate any ideas. Let me know what additional information may be helpful.