Xiaomi Mi Router 3G v2 vs 4A Gigabit Edition

So, assuming xiaomi_miwifi_3g_v2 as OpenWrt admin overview says Xiaomi Mi Router 3G v2?
Really don't wanna mess it up, hence better ask twice .. Hope you don't mind.

openwrt

I'm not sure what you are asking, which of my four 4a gigabit edition do you want me to test which sysupgrade or factory image on?

Sorry .. I am probably just confused. Let me explain.
There are two versions of Xiaomi Mi Router with identical hardware, 4A Gigabit Edition and 3Gv2.
The difference is in bootloader.

I was under impression I have 4A Gigabit Edition, at least according to the label at the back of the router. After I flashed OpenWrt, System status page says Xiaomi Mi Router 3G v2.

Since I am running 19.07-SNAPSHOT and having some issues I wanted to upgrade to the latest version. I just don't know which one is the correct one.

xiaomi_mi-router-4a-gigabit
or
xiaomi_mi-router-3g-v2

Or are the files the same? (not according to checksum)
Thanks.

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Your confusion is because you're using a custom build of openwrt, the 4a gigabit edition was not official until 21.02.

People were adapting the other device builds to boot on the 4a gigabit.

Please freshly flash the correct version for the 4a gigabit edition.

Thank you. I successfully flashed 21.02.1 for 4A Gigabit version.

Unfortunately I cannot get the ethernet working. I did a fresh install, not keeping any settings.
Now when I try to set it up it does not work.
I can log in to LuCI via browser (192.168.1.1) but when I configure the network (static IP address from ISP, DNS etc, same as before) I have no connection.
For WAN Interface settings the original value for "Device" was "wan". Did not work so I changed it to "eth0" but that does not work either.
192.168.1.237 DNS in LAN is AdGuard running on raspberry pi. Tried with or without, no luck.

Really don't know where's the problem.

Here is the screenshot of router current network settings (/etc/config/network) and the backup I created before flashing.

What am I doing wrong? (I did not set up wifi yet)

Have no connection from where.

There's no internet connection. I also tried Network > Diagnostics, no luck.
I have my desktop PC connected via cable to the router. I can access LuCI but no internet.

Can you ping the ISPs gateway?

no ping to ISPs gateway :frowning:

and what does ifconfig say about your interfaces ?

The correct device is wan, so set it back to wan.

Some ISPs map the static IP address to the last know MAC address. Run

ip link show dev wan | grep link | awk '{print $2}'

and check if the MAC is the same as the one in the device section of your old network configuration.

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The MAC address is the same. I made screenshots and saved config before flashing to 21.02.1 and compared this too, as I just did not know where the problem could be.

Ok, will set it back to wan.
(Once I am on version 21.02.1 again. At the end of the night - yes I played with that most of the night - I flashed it back to 19.07, restored my backup and everything is working as before, along with my work laptop disconnection problem).

Hi there .. sorry it took a while, I flashed back version 19.07 and restored settings and it worked fine. Now back on 21.02.1. Below are ifconfig details for both versions.
Can you see any problems there? Many thanks!

ifconfig v19.07 (internet connection working)

br-lan    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:XX
          inet addr:192.168.1.1  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5c/64 Scope:Link
          inet6 addr: fdae:6f03:d9f1::1/60 Scope:Global
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2217696 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:5178974 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:620867122 (592.1 MiB)  TX bytes:5328459664 (4.9 GiB)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:XX
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5c/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:12295235 errors:405 dropped:3 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4816941 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:6288698700 (5.8 GiB)  TX bytes:3724145113 (3.4 GiB)
          Interrupt:21

eth0.1    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:XX
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1134027 errors:0 dropped:70 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2573152 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:207189094 (197.5 MiB)  TX bytes:3040593955 (2.8 GiB)

eth0.2    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:YY
          inet addr:37.XXX.XXX.XXX  Bcast:37.XXX.XXX.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: 2a03:a900:501:0:ee41:18ff:feec:1d5d/64 Scope:Global
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5d/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:11134357 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2142187 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:5859001345 (5.4 GiB)  TX bytes:636796992 (607.2 MiB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:7737 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:7737 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:774168 (756.0 KiB)  TX bytes:774168 (756.0 KiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:ZZ
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5e/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:715119 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1342233 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:175070490 (166.9 MiB)  TX bytes:898408028 (856.7 MiB)

wlan1     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:AA
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5f/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:547467 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1045116 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:268602654 (256.1 MiB)  TX bytes:1484691949 (1.3 GiB)

ifconfig v21.02.1 (internet connection not working)

br-lan    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:XX
          inet addr:192.168.1.1  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5c/64 Scope:Link
          inet6 addr: fdff:ce41:b221::1/60 Scope:Global
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:12788 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:8902 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1401546 (1.3 MiB)  TX bytes:2575572 (2.4 MiB)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:XX
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5c/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1504  Metric:1
          RX packets:9755 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:11623 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1294190 (1.2 MiB)  TX bytes:3085762 (2.9 MiB)
          Interrupt:21

lan1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:XX
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:6902 errors:0 dropped:3 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6808 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:906573 (885.3 KiB)  TX bytes:2457835 (2.3 MiB)

lan2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:XX
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2853 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4527 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:212027 (207.0 KiB)  TX bytes:505637 (493.7 KiB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:7752 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:7752 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:716969 (700.1 KiB)  TX bytes:716969 (700.1 KiB)

wan       Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:YY
          inet addr:37.XXX.XXX.XXX  Bcast:37.XXX.XXX.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5d/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:13 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:1376 (1.3 KiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:ZZ
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5e/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:962 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2164 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:101211 (98.8 KiB)  TX bytes:345800 (337.6 KiB)

wlan1     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr EC:41:XX:XX:XX:AA
          inet6 addr: fe80::ee41:18ff:feec:1d5f/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2961 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2074 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:316147 (308.7 KiB)  TX bytes:322985 (315.4 KiB)

any advice, anyone? thx

You don't receive any packets on the wan interface. Call your ISP technical support to check if they "see" the device at Layer 2 (by MAC address).

1 Like

Will do.
But it would be weird if they not, as the MAC address is the same in both versions, right?

It could be some difference in the ethernet signal strength in version 21.02. Do you have some unmanaged switch to connect between your ISP and the router?

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I can assure you that the hardware is completely identical because I flashed the R3GV2's firmware on the 4AGE using a ch341a flash programmer. The device worked fine for the last 2 years but recently I broke openwrt when upgrading and that to run the tftp-restore-method: i did not work as the 4A's restore-image was not accepted.
I had to use the ch341a again to flash it and this time I flashed the 4a-image containing the bootloader, Bdata and so on: it was a perfectly fine working 4a again. This way you can also convert a chinese device to a EU/DE-device and the other way round.

Now comes the interesting part: you can interchange the bootloader by flashing mtd from a running openwrt after installing the kmod-mtd-rw and then using "mtd write file.bin partitionname".
This way I converted my second 4AGE running a R3Gv2-Image back to the 4A's bootloader.

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Thx for the info, interesting!
I am still running the snapshot for R3v2 (19.07) as I was not able to get the version 21.02.1 working with my settings. The flash is successful, I can access it, change settings etc but having a static address there's no internet access, as per config for both versions above. Dunno what's wrong and how to fix it.