Hey y'all, I'm new to this forum and like many, I come here with a problem I cannot solve myself. Up until this morning, my RT-AX86U has been happily trucking along without issue for the past 3.5 years without any problems whatsoever. This morning, however, I woke up to:
- No wifi network visible on any of my devices
- No connection via the Ethernet ports
A simple power cycle did not solve this, so I held down the reset button to do, well, a reset. And, at first glance, this worked! I could see a happy, working connection on my Ethernet-connected desktop once more. But then I realized: The wifi network was still not back. So I checked the settings via the web interface and... Everything looks normal, wifi is on, the network has the same name and setup that it used to. It's just... Not showing up. The wifi lights on the router aren't even lighting up.
So I tried the obvious: Update to the latest firmware! I hit the "Check Update" button and... Nothing happened? Well, it's possible it has the latest firmware already, so I checked which version it was running:
That is not the latest firmware. The latest firmware is
Huh? But I just updated it? Okay, so I tried a factory reset, making sure to check the box that reads "Initialize all the settings, and clear all the data log for AiProtection, Traffic Analyzer, and Web History." just to be sure that everything is wiped. So I do that, the router reboots, and... Nothing has been wiped. All the settings (username/passwsord/wifi/etc) are as they were before.
So then I tried a "hard reset" with the WPS button. That was successful! My settings were actually wiped! But the wifi still wasn't working, and the firmware wasn't updated. So I tried to install the same firmware update again. And then the router rebooted, and upon coming back up told me the firmware version was:
Okay, at this point, I'm out of ideas. Nothing I do seems to fix this. The wifi still isn't working, and the firmware refuses to update. I have tried:
- No wifi network visible on any of my devices
- No connection via the Ethernet ports
A simple power cycle did not solve this, so I held down the reset button to do, well, a reset. And, at first glance, this worked! I could see a happy, working connection on my Ethernet-connected desktop once more. But then I realized: The wifi network was still not back. So I checked the settings via the web interface and... Everything looks normal, wifi is on, the network has the same name and setup that it used to. It's just... Not showing up. The wifi lights on the router aren't even lighting up.
So I tried the obvious: Update to the latest firmware! I hit the "Check Update" button and... Nothing happened? Well, it's possible it has the latest firmware already, so I checked which version it was running:
3.0.0.4.386_42095
That is not the latest firmware. The latest firmware is
3.0.0.4.388_24243
, so I tried manually updating it. The process completed without any complaint, the router rebooted, and upon check the firmware version, it reads:3.0.0.4.386_42095
Huh? But I just updated it? Okay, so I tried a factory reset, making sure to check the box that reads "Initialize all the settings, and clear all the data log for AiProtection, Traffic Analyzer, and Web History." just to be sure that everything is wiped. So I do that, the router reboots, and... Nothing has been wiped. All the settings (username/passwsord/wifi/etc) are as they were before.
So then I tried a "hard reset" with the WPS button. That was successful! My settings were actually wiped! But the wifi still wasn't working, and the firmware wasn't updated. So I tried to install the same firmware update again. And then the router rebooted, and upon coming back up told me the firmware version was:
3.0.0.4.386_42095
Okay, at this point, I'm out of ideas. Nothing I do seems to fix this. The wifi still isn't working, and the firmware refuses to update. I have tried:
- Power cycle
- Reset via the web interface (this did not reset anything)
- Reset via the reset button (this did not reset anything)
- Reset via "hard reset" (this actually reset the settings but fixed nothing)
- Installing the latest firmware (still stuck on
3.0.0.4.386_42095
) - Installing older firmware (still stuck on
3.0.0.4.386_42095
) - Installing custom firmware (latest version of Merlin) (still stuck on
3.0.0.4.386_42095
)