xiaomi-4a-gigabit-edition has a new flash which is EN25QX128@44Mhz cause a endless reboot

[FredyVia]

I tried openwrt-21.02.1-squashfs-sysupgrade and openwrt-21.02.2-squashfs-sysupgrade, both cause a endless reboot, Due to conditional restrictions, I cannot provide the system startup log. this is my info in breed(I use this breed:breed-mt7621-pbr-m1.bin)

[FredyVia]

according to this commit a Optional patch is change the frequency to 44Mhz, but I don't know whether this will cause the performance loss

[FredyVia]

I tried modify the frequency to 44Mhz,but doesn't work

[yasamoka]

Have you had any success with this eventually? Thank you.

[FredyVia]

not yet

[bill888uk]

Another user possibly reporting similar problem with same EON EN25QX128 flash chip on chinese R4AG. (Unclear why they would use breed bootloader, as regular openwrt images surely would not work anyway with Breed?)

https://forum.openwrt.org/t/xiaomi-4a-3-gigaport-cannot-flash-openwrt-21-02/122878

Probably unrelated. But in same thread, another user with Global R4AG couldn't install OpenWrt from Global or 'chinese' Xiaomi firmware using openwrtinvasion github based instructions from Owrt R4AG device page for Global R4AG device - reason for failures unknown. Uses GigaDevice GD25Q128E flash chip (Not GD25Q128C). Eventually installed OpenWrt after reflashing Global firmware, and using only Windows tools.

fwiw, I checked my earlier 2019 'Giga' Global model and it has a GD25Q127CSIG flash chip and I've had no issues installing OpenWrt.

[hauke]

Could you or anyone else please post a boot log of OpenWrt on such a device? You can obtain it when you connect a serial console to the device.

Does anyone have a data sheet of the EON EN25QX128 flash chip and could share a link or the document please.

[kopijahe]

Unclear why they would use breed bootloader, as regular openwrt images surely would not work anyway with Breed?

Well, breed offers a web ui to do various things:

• Full backup and restore of the flash chip
• Backup and restore of eeprom (Factory) partition
• Changing MAC Addresses (sometimes needed for some ISPs)
• Overclock (never tested this, as the heatsink on 4A Gigabit/100M would not be adequate for it)

For using with regular openwrt images, you need to enable environment configuration:

And add autoboot.command boot flash 0x00180000:

After that, you can use it normally, sysupgrade also work.

[AbraxasDMG]

Hi guys. Sorry for probably asking the obvious, but... Is this issue related only the Chinese models or for Global/European as well? After going through a number of openwrt forum topics I still am not certain if this is limited only to the new Chinese devices.

I have just bought 2 new units in Europe and intend to put openwrt on them this weekend. Should I first check something (open the box and look at some labels on the chips, or similar)?

Thanks in advance!

[kopijahe]

@AbraxasDMG: You can peek through the holes in the bottom of the case, near the power connector. Shine a flash light, and try to read the chip.

I just recently bought some, global versions, production date is 05/2021, and all of them have the chip from GigaDevice...

[AbraxasDMG]

Thank you. I'll do that and see what's there (fingers crossed).

Update: If that might be relevant to anyone, 21.02 has been installed without a problem on Winbond 25Q128JVSQ (production date 12/2020).

[db260179]

EN25QX128 is a brand new SPI-NOR flash chip and will need linux kernel support in the spi driver for openwrt to be able to use it.

Bootloaders work independent - uboot or breed

The only solution for for now with boards with this spi chip is replace it with a support flash chip or wait for upstream support.

If someone who owns this new board can help, by creating kernel patch for 5.4 or 5.10 and add the necessary id in https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v5.4.187/source/drivers/mtd/spi-nor/spi-nor.c#L2176

And test it. Ideally this needs to be pushed upstream to the linux kernel.

FYI - someone has list the EON chips https://forum.openwrt.org/t/xiaomi-4a-3-gigaport-cannot-flash-openwrt-21-02/122878/6

[bill888uk]

fwiw, the 4C also uses same flash chip ID 1c7118 for EN25QX128A with same problem.

https://forum.openwrt.org/t/new-xiaomi-4c-cannot-install-openwrt-flash-chip-changed-to-en25qx128a/123634

flash chip ID 1c7118 in a R4AG https://forum.openwrt.org/t/openwrt-on-xiaomi-4a-gigabit-will-infinite-restart/124496

[EpicDogger]

i dont konw the flash chip ,but with same problem https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/issues/9652 https://forum.openwrt.org/t/openwrt-on-xiaomi-4a-gigabit-will-infinite-restart/124496 I found that someone paid attention to my post, I am very happy, I am from China, if there is the latest solution, I hope to update it in time, thank you very much

[RadioOperator]

back to stock FW and try my snapshot build for this device: openwrt-snapshot-r19255-009f8afe06-ramips-mt7621-xiaomi_mi-router-4a-gigabit-squashfs-sysupgrade.zip Xiaomi4AG-openwrt-snapshot-EN25QX128A-20221111.zip

[Evan-tc]

Unclear why they would use breed bootloader, as regular openwrt images surely would not work anyway with Breed?

Well, breed offers a web ui to do various things:

* Full backup and restore of the flash chip

* Backup and restore of eeprom (Factory) partition

* Changing MAC Addresses (sometimes needed for some ISPs)

* Overclock (never tested this, as the heatsink on 4A Gigabit/100M would not be adequate for it)

For using with regular openwrt images, you need to enable environment configuration:

And add autoboot.command boot flash 0x00180000:

After that, you can use it normally, sysupgrade also work.

does it work?

[kopijahe]

@Evan-tc: I used it on my devices, both winbond and gigadevice-equipped works.

EON-equipped device should work too, but not openwrt (for now, at least).

[Evan-tc]

I used it on my devices, both winbond and gigadevice-equipped works.

EON-equipped device should work too, but not openwrt (for now, at least).

Thanks, that's meat the devise still can not use the openwrt.
sad.

[Evan-tc]

does this issue be solved?

[jcmolero]

I’ve found one 4A with production date 05/2020, does it have the old giga Device?

[bill888uk]

fwiw, this PCB with screen printed production date of 2114 (week 14 of 2021?) is fitted with a GigaDevice flash chip: https://openwrt.org/_detail/media/xiaomi/xiaomi-mi-router-4a-gigabit-board-without-shielding-small.jpg?id=inbox%3Atoh%3Axiaomi%3Axiaomi_mi_router_4a_gigabit_edition

[db260179]

I've added the new EON flash chip to my gitlab branch - https://gitlab.com/db260179/openwrt-base/-/commit/e43d6e3f51d453b69d658b11eea3bacd292487b8

Also prebuilt some images for the Xiaomi 4/4AG Gigabit models for testing - 21.02-snapshot

Any feedback welcome, im only doing Xiaomi 4AG models, nothing else, if people want to build for their mt7620 xiaomi models then just build from my source code as above address.

Download for prebuilt image - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bc5dCxMRMwbkVDSNgYFkol4hZqry2WPf?usp=sharing

[rn7s2]

@db260179

I've added the new EON flash chip to my gitlab branch - https://gitlab.com/db260179/openwrt-base/-/commit/e43d6e3f51d453b69d658b11eea3bacd292487b8

Also prebuilt some images for the Xiaomi 4/4AG Gigabit models for testing - 21.02-snapshot

Any feedback welcome, im only doing Xiaomi 4AG models, nothing else, if people want to build for their mt7620 xiaomi models then just build from my source code as above address.

Download for prebuilt image - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bc5dCxMRMwbkVDSNgYFkol4hZqry2WPf?usp=sharing

I have a Mi-4A-Gigabit, production date March, 2022

It has an spi-nor spi0.0: en25qx128a (16384 Kbytes) flash.

I tested your prebuilt image and it works great for me. It resolves the reboot-loop.

Thanks.

[pikerr]

@db260179

I've added the new EON flash chip to my gitlab branch - https://gitlab.com/db260179/openwrt-base/-/commit/e43d6e3f51d453b69d658b11eea3bacd292487b8 Also prebuilt some images for the Xiaomi 4/4AG Gigabit models for testing - 21.02-snapshot Any feedback welcome, im only doing Xiaomi 4AG models, nothing else, if people want to build for their mt7620 xiaomi models then just build from my source code as above address. Download for prebuilt image - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bc5dCxMRMwbkVDSNgYFkol4hZqry2WPf?usp=sharing

I have a Mi-4A-Gigabit, production date March, 2022

It has an spi-nor spi0.0: en25qx128a (16384 Kbytes) flash.

I tested your prebuilt image and it works great for me. It resolves the reboot-loop.

Thanks.

I also managed flashing my Mi-4A-G successfully after bootloop. But now can't persist anything after reboot, eg password.

Another Mi 4A-G router's dmesg with healthy MTD partitioning:

[    0.614908] spi-nor spi0.0: w25q128 (16384 Kbytes)
[    0.619787] 8 fixed-partitions partitions found on MTD device spi0.0
[    0.626135] Creating 8 MTD partitions on "spi0.0":
[    0.630930] 0x000000000000-0x000000030000 : "u-boot"
[    0.637423] 0x000000030000-0x000000040000 : "u-boot-env"
[    0.644011] 0x000000040000-0x000000050000 : "Bdata"
[    0.650103] 0x000000050000-0x000000060000 : "factory"
[    0.656590] 0x000000060000-0x000000070000 : "crash"
[    0.662716] 0x000000070000-0x000000080000 : "cfg_bak"
[    0.669258] 0x000000080000-0x000000180000 : "overlay"
[    0.675752] 0x000000180000-0x000001000000 : "firmware"
[    0.682344] 2 uimage-fw partitions found on MTD device firmware
[    0.688307] Creating 2 MTD partitions on "firmware":
[    0.693275] 0x000000000000-0x000000242995 : "kernel"
[    0.699653] 0x000000242995-0x000000e80000 : "rootfs"
[    0.705881] mtd: device 9 (rootfs) set to be root filesystem
[    0.711685] 1 squashfs-split partitions found on MTD device rootfs
[    0.717879] 0x000000570000-0x000000e80000 : "rootfs_data"
[    0.750964] mt7530 mdio-bus:1f: MT7530 adapts as multi-chip module

Current router's dmesg with bad MTD partitioning:

[    3.692132] spi-mt7621 1e000b00.spi: sys_freq: 220000000
[    3.698407] spi-nor spi0.0: en25qx128a (16384 Kbytes)
[    3.703561] 8 fixed-partitions partitions found on MTD device spi0.0
[    3.709968] Creating 8 MTD partitions on "spi0.0":
[    3.714774] 0x000000000000-0x000000030000 : "u-boot"
[    3.721254] 0x000000030000-0x000000040000 : "u-boot-env"
[    3.727835] 0x000000040000-0x000000050000 : "Bdata"
[    3.734094] 0x000000050000-0x000000060000 : "factory"
[    3.740546] 0x000000060000-0x000000070000 : "crash"
[    3.746827] 0x000000070000-0x000000080000 : "cfg_bak"
[    3.753188] 0x000000080000-0x000000180000 : "overlay"
[    3.759664] 0x000000180000-0x000001000000 : "firmware"
[    3.798778] mt7530 mdio-bus:1f: MT7530 adapts as multi-chip module

[db260179]

I also managed flashing my Mi-4A-G successfully after bootloop. But now can't persist anything after reboot, eg password.

Make sure to use openwrt-21.02-snapshot-r16618+25-e43d6e3f51-ramips…iaomi_mi-router-4a-gigabit-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin and not the initramfs image!

[allgood]

Booted chinese 4ag with prebuilt images from @db260179 , but was unable to install some kmod packages. Is there a place with the kernel dependent packages available or do I need to build them from source?

[db260179]

Booted chinese 4ag with prebuilt images from @db260179 , but was unable to install some kmod packages. Is there a place with the kernel dependent packages available or do I need to build them from source?

Yep, im not sure if these chips have been added in openwrt as of yet, so for now will have to build your own image

https://gitlab.com/db260179/openwrt-base/

[Piradoxlanieve]

yesterday I bought in the xiaomi spain store (https://www.mi.com/es/product/mi-router-4a-gigabit-edition/), I suppose it will arrive next week, it has been more than 12 years or more since I flashed a router, my last one was a wrt-54g with dd-wrt, I suppose it has the en25qx128a chip Would I have to use this firmware openwrt-21.02-snapshot-r16618+25-e43d6e3f51-ramips-mt7621-xiaomi_mi-router-4a-gigabit-initramfs-kernel? and this guide https://www.radiusdesk.com/docuwiki/2021/xiaomi_flash? Thank you. @db260179

[db260179]

@Piradoxlanieve

Make sure to use openwrt-21.02-snapshot-r16618+25-e43d6e3f51-ramips…iaomi_mi-router-4a-gigabit-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin and not the initramfs image!

[Piradoxlanieve]

@Piradoxlanieve

¡Asegúrese de usar openwrt-21.02-snapshot-r16618+25-e43d6e3f51-ramips…iaomi_mi-router-4a-gigabit-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin y no la imagen initramfs!

Can I use today's version of openwrt selector snapshot?

Today they give me the router.

Model: Xiaomi Mi Router 4A Gigabit Edition Platform: ramips/mt7621 Version: SNAPSHOT (r20375-d6994c53cd) Date: 2022-08-22 17:34:33 https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/ramips/mt7621/openwrt-ramips-mt7621-xiaomi_mi-router-4a-gigabit-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

@db260179 thanks for your job.

Sorry my bad english.

[kennymnk]

As the next stable version 22.03 is in the stage of rc6 now, should we still use the firmware openwrt-21.02-snapshot-r16618+25-e43d6e3f51-ramips…iaomi_mi-router-4a-gigabit-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin for en25qx128a flash?