Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2025 15:13 Post subject: R9000 r58694 - rebooted and lost all settings
So my R9000 has been running stable for many years and it had a slew of settings on it. A lot of static addresses, Site to Site VPN, etc. Well I woke up this moring and the the wifi was completely down which i thought odd.... Rebooted the router and it still didn't come back up, rebooted it again, same thing.... couldn't get to it at all. Then i noticed a new wifi SSID.... dd-wrt. Oh crap.... it factory defaulted!!!
Well, i searched and searched and was trying to find an NVRAM backup.... i found one from 2021, but it's got none of my VPN setups, or nearly as many static addresses in the list. I restored that nvram backup, but i'm trying to find out if there's ANY other way to get my old settings back? Is there any folder or anything where the old settings might be kept? Why would this happen in the first place? It just suddenly went poof and factory reset!
Joined: 15 Aug 2016 Posts: 290 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 4:41 Post subject:
I am afraid that once R9000 displays its default settings as startup, all previous configurations are lost.
Some routers, by design, have something known as dual boot RAM. This means two operating systems are installed on the dual RAM, allowing their recovery should one OP fail at boot up. Sadly, I don't think the R9000 has the dual boot RAM feature.
Unsolicited advice. Let this be a good learning opportunity of having a backup copy of current configurations. And an updated copy EVERY TIME a change is made to the router's settings. Each backup copy is auto-dated but should be labelled accordingly. It goes without saying.
(This very issue reminds me of my former role as system administrator at a tertiary education institution. Pls don't be offended. To err is human).
Lastly, try WireGuard for VPN if you have not already used it previously. Setting it up is 1/10 the efforts needed in setting up OpenVPN Server. See egc's guide in Advanced Networking section for detail. Good luck.
Backup Folder.png
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_________________ Life is a journey; travel alone makes it less enjoyable and lonely.
___________________________________________________
2x Netgear R9000 & 2x XR700 Features:
- Gateway
- Overclocked -2000MHz
- SmartDNS, DDNS
- Both 5GHz & 2.4GHz using DDWRT (not Vanilla component)
- Private Home network on default br0 bridge together with vlan1 + wlan0 & 1
- Isolated port-based VLANS, placed on bridges + vAPs (wlan0.1 & 1.1) for guests & IoT devs)
- WireGuard Server for secure on-the-road access & remote control of devices @home
- OpenVPN Client for incognito & o/seas based programs
- 10G SFP+ connected to RB5009 (via optical fiber)
- QoS - HFSC/FQ_CODEL deployed on ISP's 500/50mbps connection
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2025 4:42 Post subject: Re: R9000 r58694 - rebooted and lost all settings
usaf-lt-g wrote:
Why would this happen in the first place? It just suddenly went poof and factory reset!
There can be many reasons (hardware & firmware), but on the firmware side there's a safety feature under /Management.asp > Bootfail Handling that will reset all settings to default after 5 Bootfails. I'm not saying this is the reason, but it's something for you to consider.
For backing up the settings, one option is print-screen, but it's tedious, and you can't copy/paste using the screenshots. Another better option: you can save all your current settings using this browser addon: Save Page WE for FireFox or Google Chrome / Microsoft Edge (supports copy/paste unlike screenshot, supports original layout instead of paginated PDF)
Attached are extension config & sample pages.
Advanced users can create one txt file containing all dd-wrt webgui urls and tell Save Page WE to auto save all urls in that txt file with one single click.
(I'm not the author of that extension)
If you have no time to set up from scratch and prefer to use the nvram backup, you can set up a callback script in easyddup so that it helps you auto export & copy the nvram file to USB drive or cloud storage before upgrading.
Or you can set up a cron job to auto export nvram to external drive or cloud.
