two security questions answers

A discussion from 5 years ago may not be relevant to whatever problem you are having today.

When customers configure a Netgear router, there is a step when they are presented with a "Password Recovery" method.  They deliberately select some questions from a drop down menu and fill in responses.  Later, if they enter an incorrect password three times in a row, the Password Recovery screen allows them to enter the router serial number (thus proving that they have physical possession of it) and enter the correct responses.

Sometimes (and it happened to me one time), a customer somehow gets past that original step without actually defining the recovery questions.  (Have no idea HOW I messed up, but I did.)  Since the customer did not actually define the password recovery questions correctly, there is NO CORRECT RESPONSE.  The only way to reset the router is to do a Factory Reset.

After going through the process myself, being very careful to 'drop down' and select questions, I deliberately entered an incorrect password three times and verified that Password Recovery works as it should.

So.... NO.  There is no "bug" in Password Recovery, except that somehow some users f**k up and do not get it set up correctly.