Orbi RBR40 won't boot after firmware upgrade

[jathon0815]

I recently upgraded the firmware on my Orbi RBR40 mesh router. The initial reboot after the firmware was installed was successful and everything was fine for a few days. The router was then power cycled, by accident, and it won't fully come on line now. The router's light ring on the top will hard/fast blink when it's initially coming up and then it will do the slow/soft blink after a bit and stay that way indefinitely. I have tried connecting to the router via wifi and via ethernet with no luck. The ethernet ports are not serving out dhcp addresses that I can tell and I haven't been able to sniff any packets with wireshark. I have also tried doing a factory reset, that hasn't seemed to work either.

I want to RMA this device, but I thought I'd ask here first to see if anyone else has run into this.

Thanks!

[plemans]

you might have it caught in boot loop or corrupt firmware. You can try a tftp procedure to reload the firmware. I've used it several times with success.  Here's the instructions for doing it using windows.

https://kb.netgear.com/000059634/How-to-upload-firmware-to-a-NETGEAR-router-using-Windows-TFTP

[CrimpOn]

hmmm.  A poster recently asked if it was possible to load the "stock" Netgear firmware into an Orbi that was provided by his ISP and was not being updated to the latest firmware.  Since Orbi is based on OpenWRT, (1) how likely is it that this TFTP mechanism works on Orbi as it does on the rest of Netgear's router, and (b) might this be a solution to that poster's problem?

[plemans]

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@CrimpOn wrote:

hmmm.  A poster recently asked if it was possible to load the "stock" Netgear firmware into an Orbi that was provided by his ISP and was not being updated to the latest firmware.  Since Orbi is based on OpenWRT, (1) how likely is it that this TFTP mechanism works on Orbi as it does on the rest of Netgear's router, and (b) might this be a solution to that poster's problem?

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If the orbi was provided by the isp and has the integrated modem, then the ISP controls the firmware. Same as a combo device. I think trying to load the stock firmware from a regular rbr40 would brick it. 

The poster lists the device as the RBR40 which the tftp procedure works for. I've used it when I was testing an RBR40. 

[jathon0815]

Thanks for the tip on the tftp reload procedure. I'll give that a try this morning and update the thread with the results.

[jathon0815]

OK, I went the route of loading the firmware via TFTP. I get a message back that says Transfer successful, but then nothing happens with the router. The power lights goes from flashing amber to solid green and the LED ring around the top turns off. At this point I still cannot access the router via ethernet or wifi. Set up as new function doesn't work from the iphone app because there is no wifi signal showing up from the router. I have tried to access the router via ethernet from my PC and it's not responding there either. I have tried power cycling the router after loading the new firmware and that didn't make a difference either.

I loaded firmware version RBR40-V2.3.1.58.img

Since this hasn't seemed to work, unless I missed something, I'm thinking it needs to be RMA'd.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

[FURRYe38]

Ask for an RMA. 

[plemans]

I would try loading an earlier version of the firmware. I've also read of it taking a few times of pushing the firmware before it's worked for people. So try an earlier version and try a time or two more and then go the rma route.