My rbr50 went through the firmware update cycle and appears to have bricked itself. The green led power light is green and solid. The reset button does nothing no matter how long I hold it down the light at the top of the unit doesn’t come on. Anyone have any thoughts/suggestions?
One user suggested this procedure to restart an Orbi:
If the regular factory reset process doesn't work, @michaelkenward described an undocumented way to get an Orbi to factory reset:
Press paperclip in reset hole for 30 seconds Keep pressing paperclip while removing power Keep pressing paperclip for another 30 seconds while apply power
If repeated attempts are not successful, there is a process to use the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) to load firmware on any Netgear router. I have done this with Orbi's. It is not for the "faint of heart", but when the situation is desperate......
Thanks I’ve tried the alternate reset method and it doesn’t behave any differently then the regular one. I haven’t tried tftp as it doesn’t issue an ip address either on wireless or through hardline so I assume I can’t send anything via a network transfer. Anyone know of a way to have it read/load firmware straight off a USB key? I will give the tftp approach a try since I can assign a static ip and try and route to it that way.
Neither method of doing a reset results in an addressible device. I'm guessing this thing is truly a door stop at this point. Which is irritating given that it worked perfectly fine before updating itself.
@SCN wrote: I will give the tftp approach a try since I can assign a static ip and try and route to it that way.
Yes, the key to tftp is that the router reserves a special address for itself and "listens" for a tftp connection. The computer/laptop running the tftp client is cabled directly to the router (no network) and is given a static IP address (no network to assign one). After the tftp, the router will reboot and the computer/laptop can be put back into regular DHCP mode.
I do not recall seeing how old this Orbi is. Although the "complimentary support" period is only 90 days, the product comes with a hardware warranty of one year. If it is under a year old, Netgear will replace it.
It ended it's warranty period last May. Purchased in 2014. I replaced it with an RBR40, and was able to resuse the RBS50 in the mesh so it's not a total loss.
