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[Gatherum]

Note: This is a repost of a topic from the DD-WRT forum, found here. I am not getting any responses there so I figured, "Why not? Maybe someone at Interact might happen to know what to do."

I need a current—that is, something more recent than 2017 that doesn't require a rocket scientist to find via the search feature—solution to this:

Last night, I went in to my router's web GUI and told DD-WRT to initiate a factory reset. That's it. Nothing at all complicated. Just a factory reset.

What happened?

For some stupid reason, this caused a ridiculous semi-brick where-in all the LAN and WAN ports still operate and even yield a working Internet connection via ethernet; yet, there is no wifi connection and I cannot get back in to the web GUI. I attempt to connect to said GUI via 192.168.1.1 and nothing happens; the browser tab simply hangs and ceases to respond.

The router address is firmly set to 192.168.1.1 and always assigns 192.168.1.126 to my laptop's ethernet interface via DHCP. 192.168.1.1 is pingable. The interface name as reported by Windows 10's list of available network connections is dd-wrt.

Let me run through this real quick:

• I cannot ssh in to the router—connection refused.
• I cannot telnet in to the router—connect failed.
• I have performed the 30/30/30 reset about a dozen times with almost no success.¹
  
• I have performed several cold boots with no success.
• None of the TFTP solutions mentioned in various threads on this forum work.²³⁴

What. The hell. Do I need to do. To make this router accessible again? At this point, all that I want to do is get DD-WRT off of my device, revert to stock firmware, and be done with it! I am about this close to Office Space-ing the silly thing.

¹ There was one off instance in which I managed to get in to DD-WRT's initial user name and password setup. I defined the username to root and set a password. It loaded the web GUI interface. I immediately went in to the firmware upgrade page and tried to have it install the stock reversion for this model as provided in the sticky at the top of this forum. It did not install the firmware as expected; instead, it immediately refreshed to a page claiming that I wasn't connected. I waited several minutes before rebooting the router again, only for it to go straight back to the very same dysfunctional behaviour. It has not worked again since, no matter how many 30/30/30 resets or cold boots I've performed. Windows 10 still reports an interface name of dd-wrt.

² I tried assigning the following static configuration to my laptop's ethernet interface:

Code: [Select]

IP address: 192.168.1.66
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway: 192.168.1.1I opened Tftpd32—as administrator because it's the only way to get it to write changes to the INI—and bound TFTP to 192.168.1.66 in settings. I downloaded the stock reversion for this model as provided in the sticky at the top of this forum, placed it in the same directory as the Tftpd32 executable, and renamed it to ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin. I powered off the router and powered it back on while holding the WPS/Reset button for ten seconds. The router booted but Tftpd32 does not appear to initiate any transfer. I downloaded the latest version of the firmware for this router as provided on TP-Link's official website and repeated the steps following, but Tftpd32 does not appear to initiate any transfer.

³ I tried assigning the following static configuration to my laptop's ethernet interface:

Code: [Select]

IP address: 192.168.0.66
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway: 192.168.1.1I opened Tftpd32—as administrator because it's the only way to get it to write changes to the INI—and bound TFTP to 192.168.0.66 in settings. I downloaded the stock reversion for this model as provided in the sticky at the top of this forum, placed it in the same directory as the Tftpd32 executable, and renamed it to ArcherC7v3_tp_recovery.bin. I powered off the router and powered it back on while holding the WPS/Reset button for ten seconds. The router booted but Tftpd32 does not appear to initiate any transfer. I downloaded the latest version of the firmware for this router as provided on TP-Link's official website and repeated the steps following, but Tftpd32 does not appear to initiate any transfer.

⁴ I tried assigning the following static configuration to my laptop's ethernet interface:

Code: [Select]

IP address: 192.168.0.66
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway: 192.168.1.1I opened Tftpd32—as administrator because it's the only way to get it to write changes to the INI—and bound TFTP to 192.168.0.66 in settings. I downloaded the stock reversion for this model as provided in the sticky at the top of this forum, placed it in the same directory as the Tftpd32 executable, and renamed it to ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin. I powered off the router and powered it back on while holding the WPS/Reset button for ten seconds. The router booted but Tftpd32 does not appear to initiate any transfer. I downloaded the latest version of the firmware for this router as provided on TP-Link's official website and repeated the steps following, but Tftpd32 does not appear to initiate any transfer.

[DJLegba]

I had an old router (different brand, I think) that would only let me in from IE. Other browsers didn't even show a login screen.

[Gatherum]

It's definitely not the browser. When this thing was working, Edge was getting me in just fine. Plus, the firmware is DD-WRT and thus, I don't think the browser matters as long as the firmware supports it.

[JimH]

I didn't read your whole post, but did you try a direct wired connection?

[BryanC]

I have an Archer C7 v2 happily running OpenWRT.

You will need to perform a tftp flash in recovery mode (reset/power button) startup. By your description, I'm not certain which firmware is currently installed, but the recovery IP address can also be 192.168.0.66 depending on the U-Boot version. The timing for entering recovery mode is super finicky on these routers so you will need to invoke a loop to initiate the tftp session every 1/2 second or so. You will also need to make sure that the ddwrt recovery firmware is renamed to be compatible with the tftp recovery flasher.

Good luck!