Nighthawk routers and saving settings (IP forwarding, DHCP reservations) workaround

With the latest firmware, the Nighthawk router has lost its ability to save changes to numerous fields in the configuration manager. Attempting to set a DHCP reservation or IP forwarding no longer works, giving an error when attempting to save changes.

You'll notice that the error specifies the MAC address is not recognized, because the router has removed the colon's from the request. Example:  AA:AA:AA:AA:AA:AA is shown as AAAAAAAAAAAA in the error.

A workaround requires using a proxy tool to manually enter the colons back in when saving your changes.

I used Burp Proxy community edition (free). Once you install it, you start a temporary project.

Go to the Proxy tab

Click 'open browser'

Login to your Nighthawk as normal and set the configuration changes.

Before hitting 'save', go back to the proxy tool and click 'turn intercept on'

Click 'save'

You'll see the request in the proxy tool. Scroll to the bottom and you'll see your MAC address without the colons. Manually enter them back in.

Click 'forward' and 'turn intercept off'.

Settings will be saved.

Repeat process for any other changes.