Back to Stock Factory Firmware Linksys E4200 V2? OpenWrt FW to Linksys FW

and now i know... lmao. no that's good to know as i've never come across it.
and yes all devices are static except my phone which stays in the 150's and higher but my pc is the only one NOT wirelessly connected. but i did switch it to 10 for that testing he wanted me to try. sadly though... no difference.

--> DON'T <--

While you are booting on the partition 2 (your "failing partition"):

Can you use one of your devices, configure it for DHCP Client (not static) and connect it with a wire to the router in one of the LAN ports and see if you get something in the 192.168.xxx.xxx range? That's just a double test, because the defaults for this router really is 192.168.1.1 straight from factory settings...

(on Windows, issue the dos command ipconfig, on Linux (and Mac I think) it's ifconfig in terminal).

Do you see lights (activity status) on the ports when you plug in a device?

lol, ok.

ok, just tried it. changed the ipv4 on the Ethernet port to auto detect everything. disabled it then re-enabled it, still all the same. the activity light on the router that goes to my pc does show a random pulsing activity with some times a couple fast flashes and continues that the whole time like it's trying to detect what it is. as for CMD i did ipconfig/all and the ipv4 looked like an actual ip address from the internet(did have the modem still plugged in) it started with a 169. but i did put it into the browser just to see and nothing happened. also tried 192.168.100.1 and a couple others, nothing changed.

I don't know if this can work for you: BackToStock
Another developer and I added support for the device, and I developed that script. It works on this (the EA6350v3) device, and maybe it can work in yours.

As I don't have such device, I cannot help a lot with testing, so this is the furthest I can get. Take a look, get some ideas, try. Please don't hard brick your device.

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thanks for the reply. yeeeeaaaah.... kinda lost me as soon as i went to it lmao. god i'm so out of touch with code and any commands... this is horrid, anyways, am i suppose to be downloading that as an .exe or doing a following/copy-paste thing?
also, as long as it only attacks the other partition i should be good since i've been just switching between the two since one works the other doesn't, haven't tried to install openwrt on the other partition yet... but maybe if i do the update again it'll do it at least that way i'll have another partition to fall back on in case this doesn't work or something.
but yes, if i can... figure out what to do with it and such i'll see if i can get the second partition with an openwrt then give it a shot.

169.254.x.x is a link-local random address that DHCP clients adopt if they can not reach a DHCP server. No really connectivity. That just means that the router had not booted up correctly and your PC does not get any DHCP address from router.

The strange part here is that your "advanced-reboot" screenshot shows the other partition to have Linux 2.6.35.8, which sounds quite plausible as a Linksys stock firmware from 2014(?) and is actually included in the early part of the E4200v2 binary firmware file linked above (which I downloaded for checking its contents). So, it sounds like the correct file has been flashed...

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lol, yeah noticed that after the flashing and why i'm not understanding why it's not doing anything.
idk, why i'm trying to give every step i'm doing and try just in case i'm doing something wrong, because it kinda feels like it, but after no one being able to actually have this problem before, it seems. why now i think this was a problem just maybe no one encountered it before or if they did they didn't do like me and make a post about it lol.

Are you sticking to one of the tips provided?

what do you mean?

or did you get the linksys back on? Suggestions from the previous users here..

um, nothing has worked as of yet. still have one partition i'm currently using with openwrt while the other is... idk, i guess you could say bricked or something. want to try that link that @NoTengoBattery has provided but i need a run down of what i'm suppose to be even doing with that. at this point i wouldn't even care if someone wanted to either do screensharing or teamviewer me.

I'd stick with one of the techniques so that nothing happens to which you may not recover, besides anyone of those should've worked. Personally I would just stick with openwrt as it has more functionality. Currently using the EA4500 similar to your model as the tile is in the GUI of the router itself, in the past I use to do the power on/ off technique or what hynman suggested with the sysupgrade -F as I done that and know it works also.

yes but was both of your partitions installed with openwrt?
well, for me as you can tell... i'd much rather have dd-wrt(way easier user interface since easily you can tell that's all I've been use too over the years lol) but this model can only do/has openwrt so i installed it to see what's up and such as well other testings with it. but since i used the update file for openwrt 18.06.2 because i wanted to just keep it updated, but didn't know it was going to do well... this whole problem lol. was still going to keep openwrt on a partition IF i can ever get the linksys stock firmware finally installed or working.
but yes everything posted i have tried except for the one i mentioned. i see the reply, go test it and come back with my reply and the results.

Try flashing the non-bootable partition back to OpenWrt 18.06.1 so you have two working partitions (and can tell them apart). Then try flashing stock with sysupgrade -n -F from the command line.

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well, did just try it. and watched the router's lights. the install of openwrt literally only took 20 seconds lol. but, tried the force install again, nothing chaned from before and had my timer for 5 minutes after hitting enter. does just like installing openwrt in the start. light goes solid, does the breathing for a few seconds, but with openwrt the light starts doing a fast flashing which is i believe the boot up flashes and then it's going. the linksys firmware just stays continuously doing the same old breathing pattern and never changes once it starts.

Hopefully you'll recover and put this behind you, but as far as using dd-wrt, you'll need to buy a supported router and be sure to read the how-toos first...

i know. i have a linksys e1000 with it on it. know how it works and it actually helped that crappy router a lot... especially on how long it use to boot up.

rightfully so, pending if you were to buy a newer router with more power sufficiently provide all network needs, but ok the E1000 should be fine for you. So do you know if openwrt is on both partitions and how did you verify that?

because i had to install the advanced boot option again and rebooted back to the one i was on/been using.

what are you trying now?