TP-Link TL-WDR4300 v1 issues with 5GHz in OpenWrt 18.06.2

[lede_dude]

I have lately upgraded to OpenWrt 18.06.2 and what I noticed is that the 2.4Ghz wifi works very well.

The 5Ghz, however, does not work. I have investigated around the internet, and many people are complaining about the 5Ghz network disappearing and not working.

What I found out is that OpenWrt 18.06.2 recognizes the 5Ghz chip as Atheros AR9580.

The TP-Link TL-WDR4300 uses a 3x3 AR9582 chip for 5Ghz wifi according to other sources.

I think this is might be causing the issues??

Anybody able to confirm this and tell me how I could test out the correct driver? Or other drivers? I'd like to get this working properly.

Thanks in advance

[slh]

While I haven't tested 18.06.2 (I'm following master snapshots instead), that shouldn't be an issue. Both radios use the same ath9k kernel module, so if the 2.4 GHz wlan works, so should the 5 GHz one (yes, different chipsets, but the same driver - and no firmware involved either). In my experience with two of these devices, both radios should be working fine.

[lede_dude]

Strangely, I have now opened up my TP-Link TL-WDR4300 v1.7 and it DOES have the AR9580-AR1A chip inside. Strangely, some sources on the net indicate, it has the AR9582, but this could not be the case with my router.

After performing a factory reset, the 5Ghz wifi worked shortly and very well until a router reset, after which it did not work again.

Out of ideas....

[satellite15]

I just upgraded to 18.06.2 as well on my Netgear R7800 and 5 GHz also isn't working.

In the Wireless Overview in Luci it displays the 2.4ghz radio1 as "Qualcomm Atheros QCA9984 802.11bgn" but the 5ghz radio0 as "Generic 802.11 Wireless Controller"

[mk24]

The R7800 is completely different from the WDR-4300 in its 5 GHz radio. The ac chips use the ath10k driver not ath9k.

[satellite15]

Right on. Just thought I'd share a similar issue. I actually just got it back after yet another Reboot in LuCI. Not sure what happened, but it appears to be back to normal.

[lede_dude]

It doesn't even give a mac address, doesnt show up on any phones or laptops. Doesn't matter which channel I use. Region is set correctly.

[Bubble]

I also lost my 5Ghz when updating to 18.06.2 on Linksys WRT1200AC. 18.06.1 worked fine though and was also a an upgrade coming from 18.06.

[gr1m]

My WDR4300, WDR4310 and WDR4320 are working flawlessly under a custom snapshot plus kernel 4.19.19 build. Have you tried the snapshots?

[okisembiring]

I Have TP-Link TL-WDR4300 v1 and it's working flawlessly. Have you tried changing your channel width to 20 MHz? because 5GHz with 40 MHz channel width not working in my selected country (Indonesia)

[darksky]

Right on. Just thought I'd share a similar issue. I actually just got it back after yet another Reboot in LuCI. Not sure what happened, but it appears to be back to normal.

Just to be clear, your hardware is an R7800 and are you now experiencing normal operation of your 5GHz radio under 18.06.2?

EDIT: I have the R7800 and updated to 18.06.2 with no such issues.

[lede_dude]

Update: UART port installed for easy recovery in case of bricking the router.

Next steps: Will test if able to fix the issue with 5GHz and post updates.

[satellite15]

Correct (after a couple reboots from LuCI). Afterwards, if I modified any settings for the 5GHz radio it seems like it wouldn't come back, but a reboot took care of that as well.

[lede_dude]

TL;DR Issue solved

Walk-through:

a) Set up an alternative router for internet, in case I brick the current router.
b) With UART connected through Putty and with LAN cable connected to PC and WiFi turned off:
c) Backed up all of my settings from the router and checked that everything was included.

1. Installed a new unlocked U-Boot ( courtesy of https://github.com/pepe2k/u-boot_mod ) by sysupgrading the appropriate old OpenWrt image (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wdr4300-v1-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin) created by pepe2k and running the built-in script.

2. Downloaded a factory image of the latest OpenWrt 18.06.2 (openwrt-18.06.2-ar71xx-generic-tl-wdr4300-v1-squashfs-factory.bin)

3. Set my PC IP address as 192.168.1.2 and started a tftp server with the above latest 18.06.2 image renamed as firmware.bin

4. Ran following commands through Putty:

tftp $loadaddr $firmware_name

erase $firmware_addr +$filesize

cp.b $loadaddr $firmware_addr $filesize

reset

5. Tested first with the 5GHz WiFi : works

6. Tested starting the 2.4GHz WiFi: works

7. Added all my custom scripts, bells and whistles: works

8. Did 7 reboots: still everything works. The 5GHz wifi starts a bit later than the 2.4GHz WiFi, which made me panic at first, but this seems to be a normal process order.

9. Drilled a hole in the bottom cover and installed a permanent UART line for easy access.

Final result:

*********************************************
*   U-Boot 1.1.4  (Nov 19 2014, 09:48:01)   *
*********************************************

DB120 (AR9344) U-Boot for TL-WDR3600/43x0

DRAM:   128 MB DDR2 32-bit
FLASH:  EON EN25Q64 (8 MB)
CLOCKS: 560/450/225/28 MHz (CPU/RAM/AHB/SPI)

LED on during eth initialization...

Hit any key to stop autobooting:  1 0 

Booting image at: 0x9F020000

   Image name:   OpenWrt r7676-cddd7b
   Image type:   MIPS Linux Kernel Image (lzma compressed)
   Data size:    1376556 Bytes = 1.3 MB
   Load address: 0x80060000
   Entry point:  0x80060000

Uncompressing kernel image... OK!
Starting kernel...

[    0.000000] Linux version 4.9.152 (buildbot@builds-03.infra.lede-project.org) (gcc version 7.3.0 (OpenWrt GCC 7.3.0 r7549-217219e) ) #0 Mon Jan 28 08:54:32 2019
[    0.000000] bootconsole [early0] enabled
[    0.000000] CPU0 revision is: 0001974c (MIPS 74Kc)
[    0.000000] SoC: Atheros AR9344 rev 2
[    0.000000] Determined physical RAM map:
[    0.000000]  memory: 08000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
[    0.000000] Initrd not found or empty - disabling initrd
[    0.000000] Primary instruction cache 64kB, VIPT, 4-way, linesize 32 bytes.
[    0.000000] Primary data cache 32kB, 4-way, VIPT, cache aliases, linesize 32 bytes
[    0.000000] Zone ranges:
[    0.000000]   Normal   [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x0000000007ffffff]
[    0.000000] Movable zone start for each node
[    0.000000] Early memory node ranges
[    0.000000]   node   0: [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x0000000007ffffff]
[    0.000000] Initmem setup node 0 [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x0000000007ffffff]
[    0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 32512
[    0.000000] Kernel command line:  board=TL-WDR4300  console=ttyS0,115200 rootfstype=squashfs noinitrd
[    0.000000] PID hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
[    0.000000] Dentry cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
[    0.000000] Inode-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
[    0.000000] Writing ErrCtl register=00000000
[    0.000000] Readback ErrCtl register=00000000
[    0.000000] Memory: 125004K/131072K available (3388K kernel code, 175K rwdata, 448K rodata, 268K init, 211K bss, 6068K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)
[    0.000000] SLUB: HWalign=32, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
[    0.000000] NR_IRQS:51
[    0.000000] Clocks: CPU:560.000MHz, DDR:450.000MHz, AHB:225.000MHz, Ref:40.000MHz
[    0.000000] clocksource: MIPS: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 6825930166 ns
[    0.000010] sched_clock: 32 bits at 280MHz, resolution 3ns, wraps every 7669584382ns
[    0.008702] Calibrating delay loop... 278.93 BogoMIPS (lpj=1394688)
[    0.081667] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
[    0.086927] Mount-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.094316] Mountpoint-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.104876] clocksource: jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 19112604462750000 ns
[    0.115869] futex hash table entries: 256 (order: -1, 3072 bytes)
[    0.123887] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[    0.130341] MIPS: machine is TP-LINK TL-WDR3600/4300/4310
[    0.139700] registering PCI controller with io_map_base unset
[    0.383469] Can't analyze schedule() prologue at 803ab684
[    0.400296] PCI host bridge to bus 0000:00
[    0.404873] pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [mem 0x10000000-0x13ffffff]
[    0.412574] pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [io  0x0000]
[    0.418786] pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [??? 0x00000000 flags 0x0]
[    0.426365] pci_bus 0000:00: No busn resource found for root bus, will use [bus 00-ff]
[    0.435240] pci 0000:00:00.0: invalid calibration data
[    0.441410] pci 0000:00:00.0: BAR 0: assigned [mem 0x10000000-0x1001ffff 64bit]
[    0.449579] pci 0000:00:00.0: BAR 6: assigned [mem 0x10020000-0x1002ffff pref]
[    0.457666] pci 0000:00:00.0: using irq 40 for pin 1
[    0.466430] clocksource: Switched to clocksource MIPS
[    0.473169] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[    0.478998] TCP established hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.486828] TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.493926] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 1024)
[    0.501107] UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.507664] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
[    0.514894] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[    0.522622] Crashlog allocated RAM at address 0x3f00000
[    0.529584] workingset: timestamp_bits=30 max_order=15 bucket_order=0
[    0.544072] squashfs: version 4.0 (2009/01/31) Phillip Lougher
[    0.550611] jffs2: version 2.2 (NAND) (SUMMARY) (LZMA) (RTIME) (CMODE_PRIORITY) (c) 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.
[    0.570810] io scheduler noop registered
[    0.575183] io scheduler deadline registered (default)
[    0.581377] Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 16 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
[    0.591287] console [ttyS0] disabled
[    0.615355] serial8250.0: ttyS0 at MMIO 0x18020000 (irq = 11, base_baud = 2500000) is a 16550A
[    0.624987] console [ttyS0] enabled
[    0.624987] console [ttyS0] enabled
[    0.632409] bootconsole [early0] disabled
[    0.632409] bootconsole [early0] disabled
[    0.646949] m25p80 spi0.0: found en25q64, expected m25p80
[    0.652443] m25p80 spi0.0: en25q64 (8192 Kbytes)
[    0.657975] 5 tp-link partitions found on MTD device spi0.0
[    0.663636] Creating 5 MTD partitions on "spi0.0":
[    0.668549] 0x000000000000-0x000000020000 : "u-boot"
[    0.675476] 0x000000020000-0x00000017032c : "kernel"
[    0.682558] 0x00000017032c-0x0000007f0000 : "rootfs"
[    0.689246] mtd: device 2 (rootfs) set to be root filesystem
[    0.695021] 1 squashfs-split partitions found on MTD device rootfs
[    0.701351] 0x0000003c0000-0x0000007f0000 : "rootfs_data"
[    0.708970] 0x0000007f0000-0x000000800000 : "art"
[    0.715769] 0x000000020000-0x0000007f0000 : "firmware"
[    0.724039] libphy: Fixed MDIO Bus: probed
[    0.740258] switch0: Atheros AR8327 rev. 2 switch registered on ag71xx-mdio.0
[    1.408717] libphy: ag71xx_mdio: probed
[    2.037826] ag71xx ag71xx.0: connected to PHY at ag71xx-mdio.0:00 [uid=004dd033, driver=Atheros AR8216/AR8236/AR8316]
[    2.049342] eth0: Atheros AG71xx at 0xb9000000, irq 4, mode:RGMII
[    2.057725] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[    2.065974] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[    2.070593] bridge: filtering via arp/ip/ip6tables is no longer available by default. Update your scripts to load br_netfilter if you need this.
[    2.083859] 8021q: 802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8
[    2.089811] hctosys: unable to open rtc device (rtc0)
[    2.099707] VFS: Mounted root (squashfs filesystem) readonly on device 31:2.
[    2.108132] Freeing unused kernel memory: 268K
[    2.112643] This architecture does not have kernel memory protection.
[    2.566444] random: fast init done
[    2.812567] init: Console is alive
[    2.816230] init: - watchdog -
[    3.772669] kmodloader: loading kernel modules from /etc/modules-boot.d/*
[    3.841803] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[    3.847524] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[    3.853017] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[    3.863351] ehci_hcd: USB 2.0 'Enhanced' Host Controller (EHCI) Driver
[    3.871562] ehci-platform: EHCI generic platform driver
[    3.877010] ehci-platform ehci-platform: EHCI Host Controller
[    3.882889] ehci-platform ehci-platform: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
[    3.893029] ehci-platform ehci-platform: irq 3, io mem 0x1b000000
[    3.926471] ehci-platform ehci-platform: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00
[    3.933759] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
[    3.937945] hub 1-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[    3.942750] kmodloader: done loading kernel modules from /etc/modules-boot.d/*
[    3.960546] init: - preinit -
[    4.536528] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using ehci-platform
[    4.781307] random: procd: uninitialized urandom read (4 bytes read)
[    4.788233] hub 1-1:1.0: USB hub found
[    4.796211] hub 1-1:1.0: 4 ports detected
[    4.804686] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
Press the [f] key and hit [enter] to enter failsafe mode
Press the [1], [2], [3] or [4] key and hit [enter] to select the debug level
[    5.877682] eth0: link up (1000Mbps/Full duplex)
[    5.883868] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready
[    8.074374] jffs2: notice: (438) jffs2_build_xattr_subsystem: complete building xattr subsystem, 0 of xdatum (0 unchecked, 0 orphan) and 0 of xref (0 dead, 0 orphan) found.
[    8.091504] mount_root: switching to jffs2 overlay
[    8.125144] urandom-seed: Seeding with /etc/urandom.seed
[    8.337613] eth0: link down
[    8.352528] procd: - early -
[    8.355553] procd: - watchdog -
[    8.988757] procd: - watchdog -
[    8.992228] procd: - ubus -
[    9.101118] random: ubusd: uninitialized urandom read (4 bytes read)
[    9.109599] random: ubusd: uninitialized urandom read (4 bytes read)
[    9.116592] random: ubusd: uninitialized urandom read (4 bytes read)
[    9.124117] procd: - init -
Please press Enter to activate this console.
[    9.533387] kmodloader: loading kernel modules from /etc/modules.d/*
[    9.544793] ip6_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[    9.562889] Loading modules backported from Linux version wt-2017-11-01-0-gfe248fc2c180
[    9.571065] Backport generated by backports.git v4.14-rc2-1-31-g86cf0e5d
[    9.580891] ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[    9.595222] nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (2048 buckets, 8192 max)
[    9.654280] xt_time: kernel timezone is -0000
[    9.713047] PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
[    9.726807] NET: Registered protocol family 24
[    9.786842] ieee80211 phy0: Atheros AR9340 Rev:2 mem=0xb8100000, irq=47
[    9.793731] PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:00.0 (0000 -> 0002)
[    9.819284] ieee80211 phy1: Atheros AR9300 Rev:4 mem=0xb0000000, irq=40
[    9.929056] kmodloader: done loading kernel modules from /etc/modules.d/*
[   11.242240] urandom_read: 5 callbacks suppressed
[   11.242249] random: jshn: uninitialized urandom read (4 bytes read)
[   22.254392] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[   22.292260] br-lan: port 1(eth0.1) entered blocking state
[   22.297794] br-lan: port 1(eth0.1) entered disabled state
[   22.303697] device eth0.1 entered promiscuous mode
[   22.308618] device eth0 entered promiscuous mode
[   22.386708] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): br-lan: link is not ready
[   22.458736] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0.2: link is not ready
[   23.317925] eth0: link up (1000Mbps/Full duplex)
[   23.322682] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready
[   23.390851] br-lan: port 1(eth0.1) entered blocking state
[   23.396340] br-lan: port 1(eth0.1) entered forwarding state
[   23.402224] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0.2: link becomes ready
[   23.562555] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): br-lan: link becomes ready
[   25.192895] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x80e9
[   25.197014] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a country code
[   25.203192] ath: doing EEPROM country->regdmn map search
[   25.208601] ath: country maps to regdmn code: 0x37
[   25.213464] ath: Country alpha2 being used: XX
[   25.217981] ath: Regpair used: 0x37
[   25.221527] ath: regdomain 0x80e9 dynamically updated by user
[   25.227439] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x80e9
[   25.231501] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a country code
[   25.237697] ath: doing EEPROM country->regdmn map search
[   25.243083] ath: country maps to regdmn code: 0x37
[   25.247953] ath: Country alpha2 being used: XX
[   25.252463] ath: Regpair used: 0x37
[   25.256002] ath: regdomain 0x80e9 dynamically updated by user
[   27.539387] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan1: link is not ready
[   27.570207] br-lan: port 2(wlan1) entered blocking state
[   27.575609] br-lan: port 2(wlan1) entered disabled state
[   27.581587] device wlan1 entered promiscuous mode
[   27.655008] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[   27.712987] br-lan: port 3(wlan0) entered blocking state
[   27.718536] br-lan: port 3(wlan0) entered disabled state
[   27.724386] device wlan0 entered promiscuous mode
[   27.729314] br-lan: port 3(wlan0) entered blocking state
[   27.734712] br-lan: port 3(wlan0) entered forwarding state
[   27.757374] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x8348
[   27.761450] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a country code
[   27.767689] ath: doing EEPROM country->regdmn map search
[   27.773076] ath: country maps to regdmn code: 0x3a
[   27.777950] ath: Country alpha2 being used: XX
[   27.782454] ath: Regpair used: 0x3a
[   27.785995] ath: regdomain 0x8348 dynamically updated by user
[   27.791917] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x8348
[   27.795979] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a country code
[   27.802179] ath: doing EEPROM country->regdmn map search
[   27.807586] ath: country maps to regdmn code: 0x3a
[   27.812444] ath: Country alpha2 being used: XX
[   27.816964] ath: Regpair used: 0x3a
[   27.820578] ath: regdomain 0x8348 dynamically updated by user
[   28.257105] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
[   76.236483] random: crng init done
[   90.569847] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan1: link becomes ready
[   90.576571] br-lan: port 2(wlan1) entered blocking state
[   90.581972] br-lan: port 2(wlan1) entered forwarding state



BusyBox v1.28.4 () built-in shell (ash)

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