acecilia/OpenWRTInvasion

Debricking Xiaomi Mi Router 4A Gigabit Edition

Opened this issue · 5 comments

deathline94 commented

Hey there, guys. The title is self-explanatory, but here it is
my router was shipped with the 3.2.30 firmware, and it was the English/global version. I tried to flash the latest OpenWrt, albeit for the v2 version, using the exploit.
But I guess my router was the v1 kind. So it never booted up again
orange light staying on.
It does go to the safe mod with a blinking orange light and when using the Tinypxe the light blinks fast and turns purple, but it stays that way and won't flash all the way through
so what are my options now ? Is it fixable ? What can I do ?
Thanks for the help in advance.

nginx74 commented

Same happened for me.
the orange light keeps blinking, and I can't put it in boot mode.
Cant use TinyPXE for it, it does not respond to TinyPXE

StefanStanic95 commented

Got the same problem on another router 4A Gigabit Global version router, fast blinking purple light that blinks infinitely. I am going to order a CH341A programmer and flash the chip from another 4A Gigabit global router which has the exact same firmware, 3.0.35 and report here if I succeed

In my case the router was bricked by:

  • Flashing from 3.0.35 (stock global) to 2.28.62 using miwifi_r4a_firmware_72d65_2.28.62.bin, which worked
  • Deciding to flash international firmware 3.0.24 using miwifi_r4a_all_03233_3.0.24_INT.bin, which finally bricked the router and I couldn't flash any firmware file at all via TFTP

I've read somewhere on the forum that flashing the original firmware would help solve the problem, but firmware 3.0.35 is not available, and cannot be extracted from another, properly working router. So, it looks to me that the only possible way of recovery is via SPI flashing device.

thewh1teagle commented

I just debricked mi 4a gigabit here are the notes I wrote while doing it

  1. Download firmware from https://mirom.ezbox.idv.tw/en/miwifi/R4A/roms-stable/
  2. Download debrick tool from https://hoddysguides.com/xiaomi-debrick-tools-all/
  3. Connect network cable from the nearest port to the power to the PC
  4. Place the bin file in the debrick tool folder
  5. Open control panel and change ethernet adapter IP to 192.168.1.2 and subnet mask to 255.255.255.0
  6. Delete the file test.bin from the debrick tool
  7. Open debrick tool and set it to 192.168.1... instead of default one
  8. Select the right file in debrick tool
  9. Press online in debrick tool
  10. Hold the reset button and reconned the power while watching the debrick log for changes
  11. Wait for it to collect the file. it will show more log after DoReadFile once it finished.

Note: with Gigabit m4 it worked for me just with the test file that comes with the debrick tool
Note: It may take 20 minutes to install it.
Note: Make sure your PC remain ON. You can use https://github.com/thewh1teagle/kipi
Note: 192.168.1.2 may missing from debrick tool. You may need to reopen it after doing step 10 again to see it
Note: Sometimes you need to long press the reset button AFTER it's ON instead of before to make the led flash and work.
Note: sometimes after 20 minutes of flash it doesn't show something in the log or flash. Presonally I just reboot the router and notice that there's new WIFI available.

By the way I bricked it simply because I tried to install stock fw from openwrt settings. Coudln't revert it to stock.

deathline94 commented

I just debricked mi 4a gigabit here are the notes I wrote while doing it

1. Download firmware from [mirom.ezbox.idv.tw/en/miwifi/R4A/roms-stable](https://mirom.ezbox.idv.tw/en/miwifi/R4A/roms-stable/)

2. Download debrick tool from [hoddysguides.com/xiaomi-debrick-tools-all](https://hoddysguides.com/xiaomi-debrick-tools-all/)

3. Connect network cable from the nearest port to the power to the PC

4. Place the bin file in the debrick tool folder

5. Open control panel and change ethernet adapter IP to 192.168.1.2 and subnet mask to 255.255.255.0

6. Delete the file test.bin from the debrick tool

7. Open debrick tool and set it to 192.168.1... instead of default one

8. Select the right file in debrick tool

9. Press online in debrick tool

10. Hold the reset button and reconned the power while watching the debrick log for changes

11. Wait for it to collect the file. it will show more log after DoReadFile once it finished.

Note: with Gigabit m4 it worked for me just with the test file that comes with the debrick tool Note: It may take 20 minutes to install it. Note: Make sure your PC remain ON. You can use thewh1teagle/kipi Note: 192.168.1.2 may missing from debrick tool. You may need to reopen it after doing step 10 again to see it Note: Sometimes you need to long press the reset button AFTER it's ON instead of before to make the led flash and work. Note: sometimes after 20 minutes of flash it doesn't show something in the log or flash. Presonally I just reboot the router and notice that there's new WIFI available.

By the way I bricked it simply because I tried to install stock fw from openwrt settings. Coudln't revert it to stock.

That's pretty much a routine de-bricking for this model . But i don't know how or why, my 4A shipped with version 3.2.30
which doesn't exist anywhere apparently and sadly enough doesn't accept any other versions findable on the internet !

deathline94 commented

Got the same problem on another router 4A Gigabit Global version router, fast blinking purple light that blinks infinitely. I am going to order a CH341A programmer and flash the chip from another 4A Gigabit global router which has the exact same firmware, 3.0.35 and report here if I succeed

In my case the router was bricked by:

* Flashing from 3.0.35 (stock global) to 2.28.62 using `miwifi_r4a_firmware_72d65_2.28.62.bin`, which worked

* Deciding to flash international firmware 3.0.24 using `miwifi_r4a_all_03233_3.0.24_INT.bin`, which finally bricked the router and I couldn't flash any firmware file at all via TFTP

I've read somewhere on the forum that flashing the original firmware would help solve the problem, but firmware 3.0.35 is not available, and cannot be extracted from another, properly working router. So, it looks to me that the only possible way of recovery is via SPI flashing device.

I'm curious as to what you ended up doing with yours . Any progress ?