Missing Wi-Fi Firmware Blobs GL-MT3000

Routers
1

Hi all,

I'm using a GL-MT3000 with a custom OpenWrt firmware built using the official OpenWrt Image Builder (not GL.iNet's own firmware). Everything runs and detects correctly except no Wi-Fi radios show up at all, no phy0, wlan0, etc.

There are no Mediatek ax firmware blobs in /lib/firmware/ or /lib/firmware/mediatek/ (only unrelated older firmware for mt76x2 and similar).

What I've tried

Installed all relevant kmods (kmod-mt76, kmod-mt76-connac, kmod-mt7981-firmware, etc.) from the opkg feeds for mediatek/filogic/24.10.

Searched the feeds and manually with opkg for any firmware for mt7981, mt7976, mediatek, ax, wifi6, etc.

There are no suitable firmware blobs (.bin files) installed or available via opkg for mt7981/mt7976/mediatek Wi-Fi radios.

Because there is no firmware, the radios never come up, and /sys/class/ieee80211/ is always empty.

What works (and doesn't)

kmod packages and kernel are all installed and match (no mismatch or install error).

Only the "WO" (Wi-Fi offload) and kmod-* packages for mt7981/mt7986 appear. These do not contain or install any actual Wi-Fi firmware blobs.

On factory GL.iNet firmware, Wi-Fi radios work fine; on official/snapshot OpenWrt, radios work only if the correct firmware blobs are present.

Official sysupgrade or imagebuilder builds from openwrt.org do not include the Wi-Fi 6 firmware blobs by default.

What is missing?

The problem:
OpenWrt's public repository and image builder for the GL-MT3000 do not provide the proprietary Mediatek/AX wireless firmware blobs (mt7981/mt7976 .bin files) needed for radio operation.
Without these, even with all kernel modules loaded, the device has no Wi-Fi support.

Questions for the forum:

Is there an official package or OpenWrt-sanctioned source for the required Mediatek Wi-Fi firmware?

Where do users currently obtain and copy the needed firmware blobs when building for filogic/GL-MT3000?

Is there a reason this firmware isn't available in the mainline feeds/installer, and is that likely to change?

Is there a documented, up-to-date list of exactly which files/directories are needed, and their canonical source?

Any help or pointers appreciated--this roadblock currently prevents any official OpenWrt imagebuilder/DIY install from supporting Wi-Fi out of the b

2

You need to use mt76 as wireless driver for open source OpenWrt in the builder.

Then the builder bakes the calibration blobs in the software.

OpenWrt takes them from here please read this wiki and links under this section:

If for some reason it is bugged at the image builder, you may want to delete .config to start from the beginning with a clean profile, and select platform and router, there is no need to manually select the driver then, because this will uncheck the correct driver, at worst even the luci tab for wireless can disappear with a bad config :slight_smile:

3

Thanks, that helps clarify the situation.

I'm using ImageBuilder (not full source) for a minimal CLI-only build. I'm already including kmod-mt76, kmod-mt76-connac, and kmod-mt7981-firmware explicitly in my packages list, but none of those .ipk modules are actually present in the ImageBuilder's packages/ directory after the build. make info doesn't list them either.

I now realize that the builder only includes precompiled .ipks that match the bundled kernel hash. So if they're missing in the feed, the ImageBuilder just skips them silently -- and no WiFi is possible.

From your response, it sounds like the mt76 driver should embed calibration data directly, without needing a proprietary blob. That's what I want, no proprietary driver, just fully open MT76 support for MT7981.

Questions:

Is there a known ImageBuilder version where the required kmod-mt76 packages are present and functional for GL-MT3000 (e.g., 23.05.3)?

If building from full source instead of ImageBuilder, will the mt76-based image correctly include calibration data for MT7981 automatically?

Is there a documented workaround to inject the right .ipk kernel modules into a 24.10.2 ImageBuilder build (e.g. from full buildroot or previous snapshot)?

Appreciate the help. I'd prefer to avoid going back to full source builds unless ImageBuilder is known to be broken for this platform in 24.10.x.

4

I believe they surely should be in openwrt 24, 100%.

Yes, if the target and router has been selected, then automaticly the MT76 gets included with all necessary things for wifi.

Edit:

It is possible your router is also supported before 24, I would check the downloads.openwrt.org tree, if for some reason that version of the mt76 is working a bit worse, you could in theory navigate within your builder root to:

cd package/kernel/mt76

And then edit the Makefile, change PKG_SOURCE_VERSION:= with the latest commit hash from the repo here and use for PKG_MIRROR_HASH:=skip make sure to clean mt76 by first doing: make package/kernel/mt76/clean, or in worst situation a full clean: make dirclean && rm -rf tmp/ but that will make you to restart everything.

5

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