[StrongestAvenger]

I am quite new to this site, but have been following DD-WRT for a few years. I have had this router for about three years now and for the most part it has been a solid unit. Last summer I moved into a new apartment and found that the unit made it more difficult for my router to get a solid signal to my Desktop system about 50 ft away from the router and up one floor.

I configured everything as best I could and got a consistently decent signal almost matching my rated ISP speeds.

I have always wanted to load DD-WRT onto the unit as I wanted more control over the router's functions.

I mainly wanted to boost the output signal by maybe 10% and get better control of how the unit assigned devices to one band over the other.

My initial flash went very smoothly and I began setting things up. I noticed that many settings were not holding and I rebooted the router a few times. Then I made a mistake and instead of doing a 30-30-30 reset I tried to flash a newer build of DD-WRT to the unit over the one that was not holding the settings.

When I power on the unit the Power light is solid and the 3 radio lights come on solid as does the USB light. All of the LAN ports stay off until a cable is connected and it appears to blink with activity.

So far I have tried TFTP2 and followed the guide titled "recover from a bad flash" but thus far I have been unsuccessful.

This particular router's default landing page is at 192.168.10.1 and every once in a while it will load a CFE recovery page but it never lets me upload firmware via the web. It always times out.

When I can get the unit to respond while pinging in command prompt it only replies 2-5 times then goes dead. (Please note that when it does respond it has a ttl=100 flag which I read means it is waiting for firmware to be flashed)

I noticed in the guide to recover from a bad flash it says to use firmware that is 3MB or less but I can not locate any such firmware for this model. (I am likely not looking in the right place)

I have been able to get TFTP2 to "flash" the full DD-WRT build back to the unit, however it never seems to actually recover the router and allow me to flash from the web interface.

I have indeed set my system to a static IP "192.168.10.25" also tried "192.168.1.25"
In addition I have tried to set the IP of the router via arp -s 192.168.10.1/192.168.1.1 "MAC-XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX" but it still fails.

Can anyone provide some insight as to what I may be doing wrong? I would love to recover this unit and can solder if necessary. I'm just hoping someone on this forum can point me in the right direction for a possible recovery of the router. I would love to run DD-WRT on it, but if I must revert it to stock firmware to bring it back to life I would certainly settle for that outcome.

Thank you all for any help/information you may have.

[lukhan42]

I have a TEW-812dru and have a lot of experience with the emergency recovery page as every build after 39715 has caused it to soft brick.

First, you will want to grab the the factory firmware from Trendnet's site. It sounds like you may be trying to recover using dd-wrt firmware and that's not going to work.

Next, set your static IP to 192.168.10.x. Make sure x does not equal 1. The problem with the recovery page is that the router does not give you long to upload the firmware. You have to be quick. To prepare I start pinging 192.168.10.1 continuously so I know when the router is ready to get to the recovery page and upload. I also open up my browser and type in the address so all I have to do is hit enter as soon as I see the router is ready.

To get to the recovery page you will want to unplug your router and then press and hold down the reset button. Plug the router back in while still holding down the reset button. After a few seconds release the button and wait for the successful pings with a TTL that equals 100.

Once you see it hurry like hell to your browser and hit enter to load the recovery page and attempt to upload the factory firmware.

If you are fast enough it will upload the file and you will get a message that upload was successful. If you were not fast enough then you will need to try again. It can take a couple of tries but it gets easy once you get it down. The first try is the worst because you have to navigate to where you saved the factory firmware but then after that it should be easier to get to on every subsequent try.

This method is not pretty but it has worked for me time and time again.

[StrongestAvenger]

Thank you, I'll go ahead and give it another try using a web browser. Out of curiosity do you have better luck with a specific browser?

Have you had success on Windows 10, or do you think I may have better luck on macOS or linux?

I'll let you know if it is successful, and thank you for the advice

Update:
I get it to start uploading and it makes it between 5-15% then the router disconnects and stops the transfer and goes back to being unreachable.

[StrongestAvenger]

I also tried flashing the stock firmware with Windows's built in TFTP client and I got a success message but when the router auto reboots it still doesn't respond and when it does it still has a TTL=100 status.

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[lukhan42]

Sorry about the late response. I have been away for a while. I'm sorry you're still having trouble. Trendnet emergency recovery has got to be one of the worst out there. It simply doesn't give you a lot of time before it times out and continues the boot process. The last time I had to recover it took four tries to get it to upload.

I personally use Firefox but I don't think it really matters. Firefox did have issues in the past but those were resolved some time ago. I typically use Windows 10 but I think you should use what you are most familiar with. Speed is the key.

Update: I had to do it again today after trying the latest build (still doesn't work for me) and had to try five times. I may not have been holding down the reset button long enough after plugging the router back in. On the fifth try I made to to go at least five seconds and then the upload seemed to work that time. Maybe give that a try?

[StrongestAvenger]

[Per Yngve Berg]

Connect a switch between your PC and the router. That way the switch will keep the connection with the PC active while the router is powered down. Windows 10 is to slow and will not activate the ethernet port before the router's CFE times out.

[ClashTheBunny]

Did you ever figure this out? I'm facing the same scenario. I can get a success from TFTP, I can get a success and a "wrong firmware" message from the recovery website. Any way I get it to upload, I am still stuck in a boot loop.

[kernel-panic69]

Follow Per Yngve Berg's advice, the last post prior to yours:

[macbain666]

LOL (or maybe NOT-LOL) .. I'm in the same situation with my TEW-828DRU. So did you get it to work in the end or not?

BTW, tftp can be used to upload stuff very easily at boot time. But i got the feeling that tftp upload of firmware is somehow different from the WEB upload.

If so, then that would explain why i can never get my 828DRU to boot.

[macbain666]

Perhaps this CURL command will help you upload more effectively because timing that CFE upload is super difficult.

curl -F "Upload=@trendnet-828dru-webflash.bin" http://192.168.10.1/f2.htm