AR 750 can't get to u-boot / nothing or 404

I have been playing around on AR 750 just basic stuff; trying to learn how to set up vanilla openwrt. I have not been doing anything that should have messed with the failsafe.

well at first whenever I would get stuck somewhere I would be able to use the de brick u-boot instructions to get back to square one but since yesterday it has started to become unreliable.

The problem is that after setting computer IP to 192.168.1.2 I got to 192.168.1.1 the page doesn’t load. I clear the cache, try the different physical Ethernet ports… use http/https not sure what else there is to mix up.

Yesterday I gave up on it for the night and when I tried again this morning it worked. Now again, does not work. I have tried leaving it off for a while like half an hour because everyone needs alone time sometimes right?

I am not as sophisticated as a lot of the people here so here is as much info as I can gather

  • Plugged in and turned on, ping result to 192.168.1.1 is

    Request timeout for icmp_seq 279
    ping: sendto: No route to host
    

    vs not plugged in, just

    Request timeout for icmp_seq 282
    
  • Lights - Power: solid; 2G: solid; 5G: off

  • I don’t know how to use it but I opened wireshark which lights up when I plug the router in. Just going by plain english meaning I wonder if this is significant:

    Who has 192.168.1.2? Tell 192.168.1.1 (duplicate use of 192.168.1.1 detected!)
    

    but I don’t know what else could be using that IP address. I changed the main router to use a and assign a different IP block so this device is basically the only thing that should have any interest in that IP.

  • Additionally there are a variety of packets such as Router Solicitation , Neighbor Solicitation, Standard query 0x0000 PTR _sleep-proxy._udp.local, "QU" question OPT, Multicast Listener Report Message v2

Oh and also a couple of times instead of getting the uboot flashing page in the browser or nothing, I got this, which does not inspire in me a tremendous amount of confidence:

Screen Shot 2021-05-16 at 11.49.38 PM

(The link is to /pepe2k/u-boot_mod where I found nothing that was obviously relevant… too deep for my understanding.)

So does anyone have an idea of what I am missing? I infer from the above that my computer can see the router but there is some sort of communication issue.

Just to cover my troubleshooting bases so I and you know that I am hopefully not making some mistake:

troubleshooting basics

:electric_plug: is it plugged in = yes
:battery: is it turned on = yes
:ballot_box_with_check: as per instructions: powered off then power on holding down reset button, wait till 5x flashes then solid
:ballot_box_with_check: nothing else plugged in to router Ethernet port
:ballot_box_with_check: nothing else is running that could be interfering like vpn client
:ballot_box_with_check: tried http and https
:ballot_box_with_check: tried all 3 Ethernet ports (I believe that WAN one was the one I was using before)
:ballot_box_with_check: tried letting it boot before attaching cable
:ballot_box_with_check: tried booting with cable already attached
:ballot_box_with_check: using original power supply than came with device

IP 192.168.1.2
manually set IP

nothing at http://192.168.1.1/ using safari which has no cache, no extensions, no nothing
Screen Shot 2021-05-17 at 1.24.20 AM

Everything I found searching the archives seems to involve a soldering iron. hoping it does not come to that. :slight_smile:

You said you cleared cache, but the image you posted is exactly the problem: browser cache is not cleared. Your browser is trying to redirect you to luci interface.

So the correct URL is 192.168.1.1/index.html

If you are redirected to 192.168.1.1/cgi-bin/luci, then clear your browser cache or use a private browser tab.