Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:35 Post subject: Problems entering recovery mode on ASUS RT-AC88U
I was struggeling to enter the recovery mode on my ASUS RT-AC88U. I ended up with success when I did the following things:
-do a hard reset on the Router (Turn Router on an wait for it to boot - then press WPS butoon for 30 sek - dont release WPS button and turn the Router off - wait 30 sek while still pressing the WPS button - turn Router on an wait 30 sek - release WPS button)
- then enter Recovery Mode (turn Router off - press reset button and wait 10 sek - while still holding the reset button turn the router on and wait until the power LED flash slowly)
- theoreticly you should be in recovery mode now, but in my case not realy
- connect to your router via Lan and set the IP-Address manually to 192.168.1.10 255.255.255.0 and gateway to 192.168.1.1
- open the Asus firmware resturation tool and select your firmware
- press on upload
Now the resturation tool tries to connect to the Router, in my case with no succeess!
- after pressing the Upload button, I waitet untill the software tries to find my router, than I pressed my reset Button on the Router again, untill the software connectet successfully.
No need for the restoration tool unless you cannot seem to access the mini CFE web server recovery at http://192.168.1.1. You basically use steps 2 thru 3-3 to get to recovery mode and point your browser to http://192.168.1.1.
Recovery Mode
Hold the recessed reset (Restore) button for 20 sec (or until the power LED blinks slowly) and plug in power. Using a static IP for the computer, open 192.168.1.1. The router is now in Recovery or Rescue mode.
Just to make sure. On Asus routers to get into recovery, unplug the router, hold the rest button in while plugging the power in. Once the power led flashes, let go and navigate to 192.168.1.1 in your browser
Or you could try the firmware restoration tool.
I am not seeing a problem with OP's method except maybe unnecessary WPS reset at the beginning.
Maybe the router was placed into recovery mode too early and it timed out before the upload button.
DD-WRT Wiki says to use Asus Firmware Restoration tool. Here is OpenWrt's CFE and TFTP methods.