This behavior is expected on GL.iNet Qualcomm-based devices and is not a standalone issue of the GL-BE3600.
Devices like GL-BE3600, GL-BE9300 (Flint 3) and GL-BE9600 share the same architectural philosophy:
Qualcomm QSDK
NSS hardware offloading as a first-class feature
A deliberately reduced kernel configuration
In this context, CONFIG_SWAP being disabled is not a missing feature, it is a design decision.
The firmware is optimized for deterministic performance and hardware acceleration, not for generic OpenWrt extensibility.
I ran into a very similar situation on the GL-BE9300, where several “bugs” turned out to be expectation mismatches caused by assuming generic OpenWrt behavior on a Qualcomm + GL.iNet stack.
Once you stop treating the device like vanilla OpenWrt and align with the intended architecture, the problems disappear.
I documented that investigation and resolution here, in case it helps to understand the broader pattern:
The short version:
Swap is intentionally disabled
Heavy reliance on NSS means avoiding features that interfere with deterministic memory and fast-path traffic
Similar limitations appear across multiple GL.iNet Qualcomm models for the same reason
So this is not a regression or a misconfiguration on the BE3600.
It’s consistent behavior across the product line