Can't connect to router page

Installing and Using OpenWrt Network and Wireless Configuration
1

Good morning. I think I broke my router. I installed open VPN on it and after the last step to save settings it shut down the website and I don't know how to reset it. I need help.The wifi settings are there but won't connect. The Ethernet is not connecting and I've tried several times to reset the router to no avail. The router is the TP-link Archer A7. I tried putting the router in failsafe mode but that doesn't work either.

2

if reset and failsafe fails, then you'll need serial to perform a recovery.

2 Likes
3

What is serial

4

it's a port located on the PCB - https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer_a7_v5#serial

I assume you studied https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/troubleshooting/failsafe_and_factory_reset before you tried to initiate failsafe ?

2 Likes
5

Did you try forgetting the AP and then trying to connect?

1 Like
6

I think I got it into failsafe but I don't know what to do to reset it power light flashing rapidly

7

do what the failsafe wiki page tells you to ... ?

3 Likes
8

Didn't work

9

The odd thing is my devices are still connected but with no Internet. I've been at this for a few hours now and not getting anywhere. I think it's time for a new router. Which sucks

10

You do not need internet right now: you need access to the router.

What IP address is the router giving out?

1 Like
11

How do I check it

12

Open command prompt.
type ipconfig

1 Like
13

169.254.141.0

14

Yeah, you are not connected to the router; Windows is using it as a place holder.

It was coming soon enough. 16MB/128MB is about to be too little and is probably why it is bricked after trying to configure openvpn.

  • 16MB Flash will provide for bare minimum installed packages. Devices with more storage is recommended.
  • 128MB RAM will provide for minimal functionality. Devices with more RAM is recommended.
1 Like
15

No, 16/128 is plenty for most purposes. 8/64 is what is about to be deprecated. Obviously more is better in these cases, but not critical.

@Englarman - Did you configure your computer for a static IP. The fact that you have a 169 address suggests your computer is set to DHCP.

The computer must be connected by ethernet to a lan port on your router and you must manually configure a static IP address on the computer's ethernet adapter:

IP address: 192.168.1.5
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

(the last octet of the address can actually be any value between 2-254)

Then, you need to use ssh to connect to your router at 192.168.1.1 with username root (the password is blank).

2 Likes
16

Quoted that from this page.

17

Let's take a step back.

6,2M    openwrt-23.05.2-ath79-generic-tplink_archer-a7-v5-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

On an 8-MB-flash devices that leaves you with around 1.5 MB free space after flashing, not deadly, but not great for comfort either - and certainly not much space left for installing additional packages.

Expect that to grow by around 100-200 KB per LTS kernel release on average, some more churn on userspace and potential changes to the package line-up (e.g. WPA3 support required adding a ssl/tls provider, going from wolfssl to mbedtls saved a little space again, …).

Obviously you can fill that up quickly with large packages (samba is an obvious candidate for this) or multiple more sensible packages, but OpenVPN isn't that much of an offender here by itself (obviously wireguard would be smaller).

Semi-related, I tried to build a minimal OpenWrt/main for a tl-wr941nd v2 over the weekend, no opkg, no PPPoE, no luci, no flow-offloading, only wpad-mini (no WPA3 support).

kernel v5.15:

[ -f /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tplink_tl-wr941-v2-kernel.bin -a -f /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/root.squashfs+pkg=e9fb4539 ]
/tmp/pkg/openwrt/staging_dir/host/bin/mktplinkfw -H 0x09410002 -W 2 -F 4M -N "OpenWrt" -V r25029-07ea729761 -m 1 -k /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tplink_tl-wr941-v2-kernel.bin -r /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/root.squashfs+pkg=e9fb4539 -o /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr941-v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin.new -j -X 0x40000 -a 0x4  -s && mv /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr941-v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin.new /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr941-v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin || rm -f /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr941-v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
[mktplinkfw] rootfs offset aligned to 0x1748116
[mktplinkfw] *** error: images are too big by 696980 bytes

kernel v6.1:

[ -f /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tplink_tl-wr941-v2-kernel.bin -a -f /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/root.squashfs+pkg=e9fb4539 ]
/tmp/pkg/openwrt/staging_dir/host/bin/mktplinkfw -H 0x09410002 -W 2 -F 4M -N "OpenWrt" -V r25029-07ea729761 -m 1 -k /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tplink_tl-wr941-v2-kernel.bin -r /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/root.squashfs+pkg=e9fb4539 -o /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr941-v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin.new -j -X 0x40000 -a 0x4  -s && mv /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr941-v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin.new /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr941-v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin || rm -f /tmp/pkg/openwrt/build_dir/target-mips_24kc_musl/linux-ath79_tiny/tmp/openwrt-ath79-tiny-tplink_tl-wr941-v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin
[mktplinkfw] rootfs offset aligned to 0x1832496
[mktplinkfw] *** error: images are too big by 789223 bytes

That was the moment when I took my four remaining 4/16, 4/32 devices (wrt-54gl, wl-500gx, wl-500gPv1, tl-wr941ndv2) from the shelf and put them into the recycling bin. Could I recover a little more space with even more agressive stripping (who needs printk's (right?!), wireless, a firewall, an sshd; using more agressive squashfs parameters at the cost of RAM usage (of which there isn't much to spare, 32 MB)), sure - would that free up 800 KB, no (and to be frank, neither of them had been in production use for almost 15 years - nor gotten out of the shelf for more than 15 minutes at a time in a decade; last touched/ powered-up/ flashed in mid 2018).

3 Likes