Xiaomi AX3000 Secondary mesh node won't pair wirelessly. Solid orange LED on hard reset
Hey guys, hoping someone here can help because this Xiaomi AX3000 mesh setup is driving me crazy.
My main router in the living room is connected to my ISP and working perfectly (I even locked 5GHz to channel 44 at 160MHz with Smart Connect on to avoid any DFS drops). The problem is my secondary node in the bedroom.
Here is what happened: Out of the box, the Xiaomi app wouldn't pair it, so I used the physical mesh buttons on the routers. It worked fine and both LEDs were solid white. But the very next morning, it had completely dropped the wireless connection and the top system LED was solid orange.
I tried plugging it into the main router via ethernet and it paired flawlessly again. But the second I unplug the cable to go back to wireless backhaul, it fails and the top LED goes solid orange again.
I did a standard 10s soft reset. It boots up as a standalone router (bottom LED solid white, top LED completely off) but absolutely refuses to enter pairing mode. Pressing the physical mesh button does nothing, and the app/web can't find it.
So I tried a hard reset on the secondary node (held the reset button, plugged in power, kept holding for 15s). When I do this, the bottom LED blinks orange for about 3 seconds, and then just stays solid orange permanently. The top LED remains completely dead.
The biggest catch: I'm on a Mac, so I can't just run the official Windows MiWiFiRepairTool.exe.
Has anyone seen such a thing before?what can I do to make things work again?
Thanks in advance!