Help Needed: Locked Out of TP-Link TL-WR841N v11 (LEDE Reboot 17.01.4) After VLAN Configuration

Hi everyone,

I need help with my TP-Link TL-WR841N v11 router running LEDE Reboot 17.01.4 (commit: 79f57e422d) with LuCI (LEDE-17.01). I was trying to follow the setup shown in this YouTube video, but I accidentally messed up the VLAN configuration. Now I can't access the router via LuCI or SSH, regardless of the port I try.

What I've Tried So Far:

  1. Reconnecting the Ethernet cable to every port and trying to access the router.
  2. Attempting to SSH into every port.
  3. Trying the fast recovery mode, but I couldn't find clear information on how to initiate or use it for this specific device.
  4. Using the "Power on and hold WPS/RESET until continuous blinking of the power symbol" method to reset the router.

Additional Details:

  • Someone else installed this version of OpenWrt/LEDE on the router and had already set up some VLANs, changing the default IP to 192.168.2.1.
  • I changed some VLAN settings for those ports, which seems to have caused this issue.

I'm stuck now and don't know how to regain access to the router. Any guidance on how to restore the router to a working state (preferably without losing the current firmware) would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

I think these still apply to version 17. Don't expect a lot of support of version 17 it is ancient history.

Reset to defaults: Power up the router and allow it to normally boot fully. Then press and hold the reset button for more than 5 seconds then release. The lights should all blink and the router reboot with default settings. All settings and packages that were installed at run-time will be lost.

(Advanced users) Failsafe Mode: Power on, and when the system LED starts to blink fast, press and release the reset button repeatedly. If failsafe mode was successfully entered, the system LED will change to blinking even faster. Router is now running with default settings but the previous settings are still in flash and can be examined / changed with mount_root. The GUI is not available, SSH must be used.

In the future when setting up VLANs on the Ethernet ports it is a good idea to first set up a way to log into the router by wifi, so you don't lose access if Ethernet is misconfigured.

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Reconnecting the Ethernet cable to every port and trying to access the router but cant access router