UzEE
Occasional Visitor
Hi,
I made the mistake flashing the firmware first thing after waking up and accidentally downloaded the AX86U release (RT-AX86U_386.2_4_cferom_pureubi.w) and flashed it via the ASUS Firmware Restoration tool by putting the router into recovery mode.
Since then, I'm unable to put the router back into recovery / rescue mode again. The usual Hold Reset while plugging in power cable doesn't work anymore, and neither does the hold WPS while turning on to reset NVRAM.
The router always boots up into an odd state where it is always in it's initial setup wizard (running on 192.168.50.1), and the firmware seems to show some features from AX86U but obviously doesn't work correctly. It does show it's running 386.2_4 however. Trying to flash any firmware (tried a few Merlin versions, stock FW versions and even the original version the router shipped with) via the Merlin Web UI doesn't work. It just completes the flash process and returns to the exact same initial setup wizard state.
The LED lights never change their state with always the first one being lit no matter what.
I reenabled SSH and tried to reset NVRAM from there by running "nvram erase" but it just errors out saying it's unable to open the nvram file.
Is there anything I can still do via the CLI to recover the router or is it essentially beyond any recovery now? I'm comfortable trying out things since it's probably a brick (well mostly, since WAN and LAN still works) anyways.
Thanks!
I made the mistake flashing the firmware first thing after waking up and accidentally downloaded the AX86U release (RT-AX86U_386.2_4_cferom_pureubi.w) and flashed it via the ASUS Firmware Restoration tool by putting the router into recovery mode.
Since then, I'm unable to put the router back into recovery / rescue mode again. The usual Hold Reset while plugging in power cable doesn't work anymore, and neither does the hold WPS while turning on to reset NVRAM.
The router always boots up into an odd state where it is always in it's initial setup wizard (running on 192.168.50.1), and the firmware seems to show some features from AX86U but obviously doesn't work correctly. It does show it's running 386.2_4 however. Trying to flash any firmware (tried a few Merlin versions, stock FW versions and even the original version the router shipped with) via the Merlin Web UI doesn't work. It just completes the flash process and returns to the exact same initial setup wizard state.
The LED lights never change their state with always the first one being lit no matter what.
I reenabled SSH and tried to reset NVRAM from there by running "nvram erase" but it just errors out saying it's unable to open the nvram file.
Is there anything I can still do via the CLI to recover the router or is it essentially beyond any recovery now? I'm comfortable trying out things since it's probably a brick (well mostly, since WAN and LAN still works) anyways.
Thanks!