Archer C7 and a lost password

[Avolow]

Hello,

I have the TP-Link Archer C7 and cant seem to get anywhere on resetting a forgotten/lost password. I have been reading forum posts for the last two days and am pretty sure I am getting it into failsafe mode, but cant log in using putty on telnet. It refuses connection. I found a post that said as of 1.10.0 (which is the version I am on) telnet is no longer used, I need to use SSH. However SSH will only take me to a log in prompt, and since I don't know the password I cant login to continue.

I am pretty sure this is going into failsafe. When I am plugging it in, I wait for the slow flashing of the WPS light, then start tapping the reset button till the flashes are a fast even flicker. I do not have internet connection at this point, and I can ping the IP address. But SSH still wants a password.

At this point even if I cant get the password reset and have do a hard reset and just wipe the slate clean, then I can re set up my settings and get back up and running. I just cant seem to find any info that works.

I am at a loss and dead in the water. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Avolow.

[Lantis]

Sounds like you're halfway there.
Once in failsafe mode, you need to login as "root" with no password. When it prompts you to enter a password, just press enter.

[Avolow]

Thank you for your reply.

I was finally able to get into it last night (midnight), but at the SSH login I had to enter "password" in the password prompt before it let me in. Once in I tried the "mount_root" then "passwd", but it came back with an error saying that the files were read only, and it would not let me change the password.

It did let me do the factory reset. Been up most of the morning setting everything back up from the excel sheet I keep it all in. Have just about everything set, just waiting for a couple devices others have to log back in and get the restrictions setup before I make a config backup.

For the future, is there anything that can be done for the read only error (see below) when trying to reset the password?

passwd: /etc/passwd: Read-only file system
passwd: can't update password file /etc/passwd



Thank you again for the help.
Avolow.

[Lantis]

mount_root is supposed to solve that, so a bit peculiar that it didn't.

[Avolow]

Thank you for your help.