Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2022 6:26 Post subject: Netgear lost GUI (& all access) after factory reset
I am running r49532 on my Netgear r6700v3.
I was trying to configure OpenVPN and mistakenly set the VPN network to 162.168.1.0 which is the same as my LAN network.
This caused the router to be unreachable (and even non-pingable) -- rebooting didn't help...
So, I did a factor reset (held pin in reset button for >20 seconds to be sure).
After a couple of minutes, I was able to access the GUI @192.168.1.1 and verified that everything was reset. However, after about a minute, I lost access to the GUI (and telnet) -- even though I could still ping the router at 192.168.1.1.
Rebooting led to the same situation - initial web access to the GUI (as well as telnet access) for ~1 minute then lost access even though still pingable.
Factory resetting again didn't help. I even once used my one minute of GUI access to do a factory reset from the GUI - again no help.
So it seems like something is causing the router to lose web and telnet access after about a minute.
Since the router isn't able to stay alive for long enough to re-flash, not sure how to fix this.
Strangely, without rebooting, I disconnected from the wired Ethernet and was able to connect to the WiFi using the default dd-wrt SSID and password. And I had GUI and telnet access... but again after a minute, I lost WiFI GUI and telnet connectivity.
So it seems like after each reboot, I get one minute of Ethernet access and (separately) one minute of WiFi until I get kicked off.
If I connect with another computer, I get one minute of Ethernet access and one minute of WiFi.
Seems like the problem is the web GUI.
If I just telnet and don't access the web GUI, then I don't get kicked out and can stay telnet'd seemingly forever.
However, as soon as I access the web GUI, within a minute, I will lose both web and telnet access for that pc and mode of connection.
Also doing a 'nvram erase' didn't help...
However, now that I know I can maintain a stable telnet connection, I should be able to manually reflash the firmware and see if that helps...