@souk yeah what you're seeing is common when the computer gets into a "panic loop".... what you're seeing is (most likely... from my own experience) the kernel booting up, bringing up the network interfaces (and the usb port) and then running into a problem (again from my experience, failing to mount rootfs) and then panicing and starting the loop all over again...
unfortunately (and i really mean "unfortunately") since you've already told the bootloader to skip kernel0 (that's what flag_try_sys1_failed means) and since the bootloader has already successfully started kernel1, it has no idea that your boot failed... so it will merrily go on booting back into kernel1, and it won't put you back into stock xiaomi (kernel0 aka kernel_stock) for stock recovery...
very annoying, but you're going to have to break out your UART and solder on pins... but don't worry, it's really not that big a deal. i wonder what went wrong during installation... did you check if you have an ESMT or a Micron NAND chip before installing? (see the "notes" section at the end of the TOH page). Any messages about bad blocks? Any error messages during installation?
the TOH page needs an entry about "recovery using UART" (as @pjgowtham has also commented)... also "installation using UART" would be nice...
@souk i'm really interested in your problem... let me know once you have the pins soldered and your UART dusted off...
After installing kmod-fs-ntfs, I still get the same error block: No "mount.ntfs" utility available
I am not sure what additional packages i need to move to the next step.
@souk yeay!!!! you have a Micron chip! I've been waiting for someone with a Micron chip to test!
Now that you have your UART out, would you mind re-installing openwrt (and log the entire process and post it here... including the installation and the subsequent boot... and the subsequent failure)
I would like to try the following:
Regular installation of OpenWRT (Micron without bad blocks)
Slightly modified installation of OpenWRT (Micron with bad blocks) using 'nandwrite' instead of 'mtd write':
cd /tmp
mv openwrt-ramips-mt7621-xiaomi_mir3p-squashfs-factory.bin factory.bin
nvram set flag_try_sys1_failed=1
nvram set flag_try_sys2_failed=0
nvram set flag_boot_success=0
nvram commit
dd if=factory.bin bs=1M count=4 | nandwrite -m -p /dev/mtd9 -
dd if=factory.bin bs=1M skip=4 | nandwrite -m -p /dev/mtd10 -
reboot
Super cool installation of OpenWRT (Micron with bad blocks):
tftpboot initramfs.bin
then:
copy openwrt-ramips-mt7621-xiaomi_mir3p-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin to /tmp on the router
I need full logs (including what happens during installation, booting, etc). Do you think you can help me?
EDIT: for the "super cool installation" you'll need to setup a tftp server... any familiarity?
EDIT2: for the 'super cool installation' the steps above weren't complete...
@souk it's a "factory install"... don't worry there's nothing "personal" there (apart from maybe MAC addresses... which you can block if you want... they're not relevant)
@souk it installed?? that's bizarre isn't it. someone on 4pda reported it "installing" fine but then entering a crash-loop once it rebooted a 2nd time... have you tried rebooting again? anything interesting in the logs? any mention of "bad block" or something (anywhere at all?) (actually did you save the log? can i see it?)
as for the block you have (cd /tmp etc) yes, that's supposed to be typed in the console (uart)... fyi it's assuming you've copied the *factory.bin file to /tmp
it's also assuming you're running that on "stock"... it will make a mess of things if you do that from openwrt if you don't want to go back to stock (and you're running this on openwrt), the invocation would be:
and please save/share the logs. if you encounter anything that looks like an error, stop and ask for help or you'll probably end up with another bootloop
for the sake of testing, i would still very much appreciate it if you would go back to stock and try the original sequence (the one you just shared) (in addition)
btw, i already assumed you would probably be spending your time trying to figure out the joys of setting up a tftpd server on... windows?
It worked the second time around after initially bricking my device, but now i need to revert back to stock ROM for ilyas so I can run some tests for him. I see you've previously reverted back at some point earlier using kernel0 file or something.
What was the procedure / commands for that please and can we get that information on the support page?
@ilyas The wifi is working well. I couldn't benchmark it and compare it to stock but I usually have a repeater at the farthest end of the router signal. The stock firmware used to reach that distance but after installing openwrt, it doesn't anymore and not even sparingly. IMHO i think the wifi is acceptably good already though but could be pushed more.
@pjgowtham very annoying isn't it? i think is what happened: the kernel modules are installed in /lib/modules/<kernel version> ... so the fuse (etc) modules you force-installed are installed in /lib/modules/4.14.105/ while the kernel is looking for them in /lib/modules/4.14.104/ ... i just noticed that openwrt has kernel modules for previous kernel versions... try downloading/installing them manually from https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ramips/mt7621/kmods/4.14.104-1-eb8ed4b9bf234e78fd5debca12157d30/
@souk if you didn't screw up your kernel_stock partition, you don't need to do anything too exciting to revert to stock... plug in a usb with miwifi.bin (stock) and run
this should do the trick... it's telling the bootloader to skip the 2nd kernel and try the 1st (which is stock) especially since you have an UART you'll see a message saying it's waiting for you to press the "reset" button... press it. then it will do recovery. (at least.. that's what I remember...)
@pjgowtham ... that may have to do with the "singlesku.dat" file that it wants (that i didn't give it...) i'll find/add that and try with it and post a new release (in a couple of days)... i got 4.4.2.1 (the older version of the driver to compile) but i haven't tested it at all... we'll see if that works better.
that is, if you want to benchmark otherwise, i'll get around to it eventually (i wasn't aware they had binaries for windows)
EDIT: you mentioned comparison of stock vs openwrt ... i'm assuming you mean 5.0.2.0 (my "home compiled")... someone was saying rc1 performed better.. is that your experience as well? (i don't think i used a "singlesku.dat" file for that either...)
there's nothing "personal" there (apart from maybe MAC addresses... which you can block if you want... they're not relevant)
