Asus RT-N66U stuck in rescue mode after a reboot ...

[Sinan]

Hello everyone I've read alot in this forum and you have alot of excellent info , my problem happened after a normal reboot via the router UI page , and now I'm stuck in rescue mode " slow power blink".

I tried asus restoration utility with latest FW but it seems no luck so far :
I did ip config to 192.168.1.2 , subnet 255.255.255.0
1st try uploaded and start the recovery process then I got the "failed to connect " massage , I didn't know I have to wait for a long time so I did a power off then on and the router is back to rescue mode " slow power blink".
After that I tried many times and waited for a long time but the router is always back to rescue mode .
Another try .... waited for maybe an hour and went to check and saw a steady power LED and after a power on/off it went back to rescue mode .
My latest try I brought the router near the PC , start the asus utility and started a recovery and kept watching it took around 40-45min then the router restarted by it self to rescue mode again

Note: I couldn't ping the router after this problem happened, I always get (destination host unreachable) is that mean that the router is bricked ? although the asus utility does find the router when I do the FW restoration !

Model: asus RT-N66U ver B1

Any basic advise is appreciated since I didn't do such thing before "FW recovery" , I only update asus FW through their UI page ... I really hope this router is not bricked cause it's out of warranty and then I have to stick with my old tp link wr1043nd (OpenWrt) which is the one I'm using now .

 

[hggomes]

The secret is: WAIT, it can take 1 hour to reboot after uploading the FW, so just WAIT.

Use TFTP instead of Asus Recovery Utility, recently i found that recovery mode sometimes could be tricky, also disable any firewall software you have while doing it.

IF ASUS Recovery Utility can find it than you must ping it without a problem, check if the router IP is correct, my advices to you would be:

1. RESET the router pressing WPS button (router powered off) without releasing it 5-10s after power on the router, until you see POWER LED blinking.
2. With router powered on press RESET button 5-10s and check if you see LED behaviour change / is different.
3. On a terminal run "ping 192.168.1.1", if on Windows OS "ping -t 192.168.1.1", powercycle the router and check if it shows a reply with TTL 100.
4. If YES, then just upload the file and wait at least 1 hour, this can be done several ways but try TFTP client instead ASUS Recovery Mode.

You should have your router back.


Good luck.

 

[Sinan]

Thanks for reply , do you have a basic guide for TFTP also I cannot ping the router while it's in rescue mode and I think that will prevent TFTP from working, I'm beginner with these router recovery methods .

 

[hggomes]

I just EDITED the post, check again please, PING must work or no recovery is possible, make sure you have read all the instructions correctly, you must see TTL 100 msg.

PS: If your router enter in Recovery Mode it means Bootloader is intact and you should be able to ping it, you will unbrick it for sure.

 

[Sinan]

Thanks again , steps 1 and 2 didn't change anything no behaviour change as soon as this router restart after the recovery process by about 40min it goes back to rescue mode ( slow LED blink like 3-4 sec on then 3-4 sec off) also can you take a look at the screens below , how can the FW restore utility upload while no ping , am I doing something wrong ?

 

[hggomes]

What IP are you pinging? 192.168.1.1 seen it there now. Hmmmm, quite odd.

Try TFTPD (client), select LOCAL FILE (FW) and use router IP 192.168.1.1 on HOST, after press PUT and wait.

If nothing works you will need to connect serial cable on it and check whats is really going on.

You know what Bootloader version you have on it?

 

[Sinan]

I tried TFTPD 32 and did as you said and got nothing ... nothing at all , no loading just this "block #0" and router kept on slow blink , as for the router Bootloader version I guess you mean the FW version that was running ... hmmmm I don't remember , I noticed that I was trying to flash the router with a version tagged as "japan only" I'll try with non-japan older version using the asus utility as it's the only available option for and report back , and about serial cable I'm gonna consider that as out of my range I don't have the proper hardware to do so , no com port in my computer and I assume I need to connect the wire directly to the router board so no go for me in this route .

 

[hggomes]

No i ment bootloader version, not FW, if you are able to upload via Asus Recovery you are able to do it also with TFTPD32.

Insist uploading FW via ASUS Recovery then try a smaller and older FW, that will make the process quicker.

 

[Sinan]

I'm sorry I don't know how to get this bootloader version and I don't know what is the bootloader , thanks for your help , I'll keep on using Asus Recovery as I don't know why the TFTPD32 didn't work .

 

[wh7qq]

I don't want to labor the obvious here but I did see you are using windows and I have not seen what type of connection (ethernet or wifi) you are using to connect to the router. The connection to the PC via an ethernet LAN port should be the only connection to the router. Windows can be a real PITA about hanging on to old connections. Delete all of your old network connections and start from scratch. You may have to reboot after deleting the connections to be sure they are out of the system. If you have already seen to these things, sorry.

 

[Sinan]

I don't want to labor the obvious here but I did see you are using windows and I have not seen what type of connection (ethernet or wifi) you are using to connect to the router. The connection to the PC via an ethernet LAN port should be the only connection to the router. Windows can be a real PITA about hanging on to old connections. Delete all of your old network connections and start from scratch. You may have to reboot after deleting the connections to be sure they are out of the system. If you have already seen to these things, sorry.

All other lan cards are disabled and I'm using Ethernet , it's a desktop I don't have wifi on it ... wow I'm just shocked how this well reputed router got bricked from a normal reboot using it's asus FW .

 

[wh7qq]

(Head Scratched Raw) The 66U is really hard to brick. I have bricked WRT54G and e1000 routers from Linksys but my 66U seems pretty bullet proof. I have gone back and forth with Asus, Merlin and TomatoUSB firmware and have had a few scares, but it always comes out OK. I still wonder if your Windows "Network Connection" isn't interfering with your ability to access 192.168.1.1.

One way to check would be to download a live Linux distribution, burn the .iso file to a DVD or USB stick and boot from it. I strongly suggest the AntiX Linux distribution at http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#Downloads, as it has ceni preloaded and is otherwise quite light on your PC's resources. You should be able to ping the router from that. If it doesn't find the connection automatically, open a terminal window and type "sudo ceni" and see if it comes up with a connection. You could also use it to ftp the new firmware using that disk. As it is, the router just might come up in a browser window with the "mini page" (at 192.168.1.1) from which you can flash the new firmware. You would have to have downloaded the firmware file into the running Linux desktop so that the mini-page could find it.

Good luck.

 

[hggomes]

Have you tried:

http://192.168.1.1

This will send you to ASUS miniweb server with an option to upload the FW.

 

[wh7qq]

Have you tried:

http://192.168.1.1

This will send you to ASUS miniweb server with an option to upload the FW.

Definitely the first thing to try!

 

[Sinan]

One way to check would be to download a live Linux distribution, burn the .iso file to a DVD or USB stick and boot from it. I strongly suggest the AntiX Linux distribution at http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page#Downloads, as it has ceni preloaded and is otherwise quite light on your PC's resources. You should be able to ping the router from that. If it doesn't find the connection automatically, open a terminal window and type "sudo ceni" and see if it comes up with a connection. You could also use it to ftp the new firmware using that disk. As it is, the router just might come up in a browser window with the "mini page" (at 192.168.1.1) from which you can flash the new firmware. You would have to have downloaded the firmware file into the running Linux desktop so that the mini-page could find it.

Good luck.

That's a new hope but I have to learn Linux in the first place , definitely gonna give it a try.

 

[hggomes]

The thing here is that he cant ping the router, so it's impossible to access it, UNLESS somehow ICMP is blocked somehow, but the IP is available.

 

[wh7qq]

The thing here is that he cant ping the router, so it's impossible to access it, UNLESS somehow ICMP is blocked somehow, but the IP is available.

ICMP blocked? In the Router or the PC?

 

[hggomes]

He should be the one answer that question, i can't tell.

 

[wh7qq]

That's a new hope but I have to learn Linux in the first place , definitely gonna give it a try.

No need to learn much...just do it. You'll find what you need to do pretty intuitive from the menus. Post back here if you need pointers.

 

[Sinan]

He should be the one answer that question, i can't tell.

I enabled the ICMP by making a new rule in firewall although I disabled the firewall at some point trying to see if it solve the problem , now firewall enabled and ICMP rule created and enabled as for ICMP in the router I don't know but it was ping-able before this incident if that's a useful information , about the Linux I'm gonna start now and report back , thanks for help .