Root password <empty> not accepted by Luci 19.07 (Kimax U35WF)

Installing and Using OpenWrt
3

Your router is a rarity, as it apparently uses modified OpenWrt sysupgrade for its own sysupgrading (and flashing OpenWrt???), so some of its settings survive.

Here is a link to forum search:
https://forum.openwrt.org/search?q=u35wf%20order%3Alatest

Based on those, the router apparently disables root login via SSH.
See here: Blueendless Kimax BS-U35-WF - #61 by chunkeey

The reason why this happens is that the OEM GUI flash method preserves the unix user configuration in the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files from the Kimax firmware and copies them over to OpenWrt.

/etc/passwd:

admin:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/false
guest:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/false
#root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/false

You might need to use the account and password you used with Kimax firmware?
"admin" ????

You might need to revert to failsafe mode, edit the /etc/passwd there, so that root is again allowed with the normal ash:

 OpenWrt 19.07-SNAPSHOT, r11047-81f3f6540e
 -----------------------------------------------------
root@router1:~# cat /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/ash
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