Thank you very much for the detailed help.
You guys are great!
As soon as I give it a go or if I have any issues during the process I will let you know.
Thanks again.
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Just wanted to confirm that I was also able to flash the latest version onto two Deco P9s v1.80s using the universal tftp exploit. Have them both setup in dumb AP mode in a 802.11s mesh. I was also able to setup a 5 GHz AP and do the mesh on the same band, although the performance of either isn't super inconsistent so I might move the mesh to 2.4 GHz and see if that improves anything. Software/hardware flow offloading also appear to greatly improve the wireless performance.
Huge thanks to everyone who put the work into getting this to work! Super happy to finally get away from the crappy stock firmware and app.
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Hi,
Thank for your work. I've installed using exploit the firmware in a Deco M4R V1.0 and everything was as expected (using exploit with dynamic search instead the other one).
I have three Deco M4(EU) V4.0. Honestly I don't know if version M4R V4.0 is the same that I have it. Someone knows if there are difference or maybe is only the name for different regions?
Try the firmware for your V4s. Worst case the firmware doesn't work and you can use the recovery webpage to flash the oem firmware from tp-link.
Hi,
Thanks for your work. I've tested on Deco M4 (EU) V4.0 and it works as expected. I will try to make some test if my wife don't kill me before it 
(My house is fully domotic and play with the wifi means the house is useless)
KR,
Pedro.
Hello, I am from the Philippines, I have an M4v2 that had a custom firmware for our ISP (PLDT) was able to get around that default firmware and flashed the latest from from the tplink website specifically this version https://static.tp-link.com/upload/firmware/2022/202209/20220915/Deco_M4_V2_1.5.5_220823.zip, it flashed successfully.
I stumbled upon this thread and I wanted to try and flash openwrt on my existing M4'sI have tried both method in this forum this (OpenWrt support for TP-Link Deco M4R - #144 by bobthebuilder) and this OpenWrt support for TP-Link Deco M4R - #51 by KinteLiX
but still failed to flash openwrt, maybe someone can help me. This might also open up further support from the philippine community since this deco was primarily rolled out as bundle to the latest plan from our ISP. Thank you.
What about this one?
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/openwrt-support-for-tp-link-deco-m4r/68940/144
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Hi sorry for the wrong reference, I was referring to the one you've posted, but no luck, the device did not boot and stays off after flashing the exploit, no blinking as stated in step 9
Did you try the universal exploit from here?
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/openwrt-support-for-tp-link-deco-m4r/68940/172
If that doesn't work either then I guess it's time to open up the device and make some photos so we can have a look at how you will have to attach a usb-ttl-converter.
Bob. I flashed a deco m4r with openwrt. I can’t figured out home to make one port the wan port and the other a lan port and connect the Wi-Fi to the wan in the luci gui. Need help please
Not that it's a particular problem, but weirdly, Luci shows "TP-Link Deco M4R v1" while the sticker on my devices says "V2".
Other than that, it's working great, being the only issue the wifi performance as mesh, which seems to halve the speed in 5GHz.
Hi,
Go to Network -> Switch in Luci and configure the switch like this:
VLAN 1: CPU tagged Port 1 off Port 2 untagged
VLAN 2: CPU tagged Port 1 untagged Port 2 off
In this case the upper port on the Deco will become the WAN port.
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That's a label you can set when compiling it yourself. You could even use "Mister-Decoface", but I doubt that pull request would be accepted.
The first firmware I made for my Decos when tinkering around in the beginning even only had "TP-Link Deco M4R" as the model. But I guess that @KinteLiX only has V1s and when he made the pull request then that's what got merged. Which is totally fine. My V2s work great with OpenWrt 22.03.2 regardless of what the model label says. And these days with V3s and V4s around it's better to have a V1 version and just tell people that the V2 uses the same firmware.
Problems with wifi will always be due to the ath10k drivers not being that great and there is a video out there from the openwrt developer for that driver explaining why and why it won't get any better.
But you are likely using the ath10k-ct drivers that don't officially support mesh although you can still select it. You can try the drivers without "-ct" to see if that makes any difference.
Is that all you need to do? I've deleted the WAN interface from all my devices since they're all set up as dumb APs with multiple SSIDs connected to different VLANs and I still remember how difficult it was to set up the bridged interfaces in 22.03.2. And I was dreading to explain how to do that.
But now that I'm thinking about it, I am still using the LAN interface that has a bridge that is set to eth0.1.
Well my main router is set up that way. After the VLAN is set up, just make a new interface on eth0.2 for WAN.
True. The WAN interface doesn't need any bridging.
Ideally, someone would submit a PR for v2 as well, just copying the v1 (and using a common *.dtsi) image generation code, to make it obvious and avoid having to tell it to the users.
The overhead to generate a (not strictly necessary) image for v2 with identical code behind it is little, but it helps long term - both against the users' confusion and in case there are small difference to account for later on.
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Thank you David! This is what I’m trying to do. From my cable modem, connect the deco m4r on one of the ports and have it broadcast 5hgz, 80mhz Wi-Fi only for my oculus quest 2, then the other port connect to my other router that’ll be on completely different channels for my wife and roommates. This will work that way?
Edit sorry
You're welcome! Yes, it should work.