I have a Netgear Nighthawk R6700 V2. I have had multiple issues with doing sysupgrades with OpenWrt and this router. Here’s what has happened twice. I go to System → Backup / Flash Firmware, then I upload the new bin file (in this last case - openwrt-24.10.5-ramips-mt7621-netgear_r6700-v2-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin) check marking the preserve settings option.
The router then fails to reboot. The power light stays on static, and none of the other lights flash or turn on. This last time I waited for almost 20 minutes. I got tired of this and just rebooted the router manually and resigned myself to having to spend an hour trying to flash the factory firmware and restarting the whole process of then flashing OpenWrt and re-doing all my settings.
I spent about 30 minutes figuring out the process of doing this. Tried manual reboot using a paper clip for 10-15 seconds then tfpt to flash factory Netgear firmware, which failed, then learned about the NMRP flashing method for Netgear routers. Since I didn’t have internet access without having to connect directly to the modem (needed to download NMRP utility, then found out I needed npcap and connecting directly to modem was not allowing me to access several websites like Github plus security risk so I called it a night). I woke up the next day, took my router to our small business where we have internet. I turned on the router and the same problem was happening, the power light is on, nothing else. Connecting to computer, I could not access router. I had to turn the thing back off and turn it on to run the NMRP utility. Lo and behold, before I even run the NMRP utility to flash the firmware, the router now turns on and OpenWrt is accessible. It was so random. After multiple failed attempts to flash Netgear firmware with manual hard reset button and tftp, on the tenth attempt of powering the router on and off, the router is working again? How?
I see the firmware version is now 24.10.5 (I was upgrading from 24.10.2):
OpenWrt 24.10.5 r29087-d9c5716d1d / LuCI openwrt-24.10 branch 25.340.26705~d88390b
Here’s my concern. I’m afraid of doing a sysupgrade ever again. This is eerily similar to a previous attempt I had at flashing the router where I went through this whole process, except back then I was not preserving settings and was upgrading from one major release to another, so I assumed that cause the issue.
I’m concerned that while the router is working, something is wrong, and I’m not sure how to troubleshoot this, because what’s to say this won’t happen a third time. What can I do to make sure this problem doesn’t happen again?