Changing date format when plotting xts object in R - r

Question

Sadly this answer here seems to not work for me.
From what I saw in the documentation, in the latest version, 0.10-1, the major.format parameter has been removed, opposed to previous versions, like 0.9-7, which has the major.format, that would solve easily my question.
It seems such a major feature to be deprecated. Is there any new way to do this? Seems something simple and easy, but I've been digging this issue for hours without success.
In case the issue lies in my code, here is a snippet of what I'm using.
merra2 = read.table("C:/merra2.csv", header=TRUE, sep=",", na.strings="NA", dec=".", strip.white=TRUE)
merra2$utc = as.POSIXct(merra2$utc, format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", tz="UTC")
merra2$m2_power = as.xts(x=merra2[,"m2_power"],order.by=merra2[,"utc"])
merra2$doy = as.xts(x=merra2[,"doy"],order.by=merra2[,"utc"])
plot.xts(merra2$m2_power, col="blue", lwd = 2, major.ticks="weeks", subset="2012-04-01/2014-04-01")
plot.xts(merra2$m2_power, col="blue", lwd = 2, major.ticks="months", subset="2012-04-01/2014-04-01")
And the input file contains something like:
utc,m2_power,doy
"1980-01-01 00:00:00",643.000,181.5000
"1980-01-01 01:00:00",643.000,181.4583
"1980-01-01 02:00:00",354.000,181.4167
If I add the major.format parameter, nothing changes, the axis stays the same.

Answer 1

Here, a reproductible example :
# Generate a sequence of Dates
StartDate<-"2017-07-01"
EndDate<- "2018-07-05"
dates<-seq(as.POSIXct(StartDate, format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="UTC")
, as.POSIXct(EndDate, format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="UTC")
, by='mins')
# Generate a sequence of x
x <- seq(1, length(dates))
# Create a dataframe, renaming columns
df <- as.data.frame(cbind(as.character(dates,format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="UTC"),x))
colnames(df) <- c("Dates","x")
# Redefine format
df$Dates <- as.POSIXct(df$Dates,format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="UTC")
df$x2 <- as.xts(x= as.numeric(df$x),order.by=df$Dates )
# Plot results
plot.xts(df$x2
, col="blue"
, lwd = 2
, major.ticks="weeks"
, major.format = TRUE
, subset="2017-08-01/2017-08-30")
If you change "major.ticks" the axis change... Have you take a look on the "utc" variable ? What is the complete time interval?