How to reset TP-Link Archer A7 Ver 5.8

[BogMonster]

Help please........

I have had an Archer A7 with Gargoyle installed for a while, connecting with PPPoE to the ISP's equipment. It's a stable installation and has worked well.

Recently our ISP changed the wireless tech used to deliver internet access to my remote holiday home and it now uses a system called Fixed Wireless Access which works differently and doesn't use PPPoE like the old system, the DHCP server is now in the FWA head unit and the end user's router is just a pass-through and access point to the upstream router that is contained within the integrated FWA box.

The ISP provided a cheap junk router which I want to replace so thought I would reconfigure the Archer/Gargoyle to take its place but I've had a few false starts and now screwed something up and need to reset it. The Archer's reset button is supposed to restore factory settings if you hold it down for 10 sec. It doesn't. Does Gargoyle change the behaviour of this button, and/or is there a way to do a 'factory reset' to wipe all the original settings and revert to the default Gargoyle installation i.e. take out all the user settings?

The underlying issue is that I couldn't get it to connect to the upstream router using the DHCP option (which is what the ISP had suggested) so I tried setting it up as a bridge but that hasn't worked and now I can't connect to the Archer at all, presumably as there isn't an active DHCP server. I didn't think it would work but assumed if it didn't I could revert with the reset button. And here we are...

I figure if I can reset to default Gargoyle settings then I can go back and start again, but I can't work out how ... any suggestions please? Thanks!

[Lantis]

If you hold the button for 5-10 seconds and then release, it should initiate a reset.

Failing this, if you know what IP range you set when setting it into bridge mode you can set a manual IP on your PC and then access the router that way. At a guess it will be either 192.168.1.x or 192.168.2.x.

Next option is failsafe reset.
https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer_ ... lsafe_mode

Another option would be TFTP flashing a new version over the top.
https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer_ ... ftp_method

[BogMonster]

Thanks. I managed to get it into failsafe, confusingly it is not the reset button that does this (that does nothing) but the WPS button. That and a manual IP address got me in with PuTTY and then just did a reset to default settings and started with a clean sheet.

I discovered that the setting to link through to the upstream DHCP router is hidden, WAN Connect Via needs to be set as "disabled" and then the option to "Bridge to LAN" appears for the WAN ethernet port. Once I found that, all seems fine, though the only other thing that has disappeared is that it no longer picks up the correct time from NTP servers - not sure why.

[Lantis]

Did you set the DNS servers? They won’t be picked up in automatic mode when operating in this configuration.

[BogMonster]

Sorry, missed your reply. I did manage to get it working again but after fiddling with DNS settings (to try and solve what I think was an external ISP problem) I've since managed to brick it completely anyway - overnight (with no config changes), first the 2.4G network vanished and I could only access 5G from my laptop, while in the settings, the settings page had the 2.4G settings but nothing for 5G, and a bunch of stuff that looked to be for a 4G/LTE router that I'd never seen before!

I had no idea what was going on so I reflashed to 1.14, that didn't make any difference (still no 2.4 network), so tried to flash back to original TP-Link US A7 v5 firmware that I found online so I could start again, and it's dead, just a power light and if you hold down reset, a WPS light appears for about 10 secs. I'm not even sure if I am dealing with a failed Gargoyle installation now, or a failed TP-Link one (but suspect the latter). It's annoying as it is less than 2 years old, but I can't at the moment figure out a way to get it back to Gargoyle 1.13 (which I'd been using cheerfully since 2022 with no issues).

[BogMonster]

Many hours later, victory is mine!!

For the benefit of folks having similar problems, I found that most/all of the online solutions only had some of the info, some places elsewhere had wrong info, and I pieced things together from a few sources and made a bit of it up as I went along, so here is a list of EVERYTHING I needed to do in order to get it to work.

This is for an Archer A7, US model, v5.8. Background is that I had 1.13 on it for 2 years, all fine. My ISP changed from a PPPoE connection to a pass-through onto a FWA LTE router, in the process of setting up the Gargoyle to use that I upgraded to 1.14, but in the course of fiddling with DNS settings to fix a different problem I encountered some odd problems. My 2.4G wifi (main and guest) both disappeared as if they were turned off, and my 5G wifi settings disappeared (the 5G network was still there, I just couldn't configure it) and then I also had a bunch of odd settings appear that had nothing to do with the router, so I tried to flash back to the TP-Link firmware to start again, and that bricked it. Gargoyle's boot into failsafe and PuTTY didn't work for me this time, probably because what was on the router was a trashed copy of the original firmware.

I tried multiple times to do several things including original (supposedly correct) US market v5 TP-Link firmware (failed), a DD-WRT build (failed) and then got Gargoyle 1.13 back on it, which is what I'd run on it for 2 years with no problems.

First, you need the full 1.13 factory image for the Archer A7, not the sysupgrade one. It's on this site.

I found that despite my botched attempts which left it somewhere between non-functional Gargoyle firmware, and a non-functional TP-Link firmware, the router would enter the TP-Link failsafe mode by holding down the recessed Reset button as you power on. The power light (far left) and WPS light (far right, two arrows) will come on. Note that this is different to the Gargoyle failsafe mode which on this router requires you to hold the WPS button down instead (and that wasn't working). I guess it's so you can activate either mode.

WIth everything I needed downloaded in advance, I disconnected the laptop from the internet, disabled ALL firewalls (on Win 11, public and private network firewalls need to be done separately, one of my mistakes was just disabling the first one I found). It will NOT work without all the firewalls off.

Rename the Gargoyle .bin file to EXACTLY this name:

ArcherC7v5_tp_recovery.bin

Note that it needs to contain C7, not A7, counter intuitive but that is what works...!

Install a TFTP server - I used Solarwinds, which just worked fine on my Windows 11 laptop on default settings.

Put the renamed .bin file into the Solarwinds TFTP root directory (usually in C:\ but it's in the program settings).

Disconnect from Internet, disable firewalls, connect an ethernet cable to the LAN port 1, go into network settings and set the computer's IP assignments to manual:

IP address 192.168.0.66 (it MUST be .66 as that is where the router looks for recovery firmware)
Mask 255.255.255.0
Gateway IP 192.168.0.1
DNS 192.168.0.1

Fire up Solarwinds, then turn on the A7 with the reset button held in and keep it there for 5 sec to engage failsafe. If it works then the Solarwinds window will quickly rattle up a couple of messages saying get file and then saying complete. It only takes a few seconds to do this. If there is just one message saying the TFTP server is running, then it isn't talking (I found that out a few times) - possibly a firewall issue (mine was).

Once the TFTP transfer has done its stuff, let the update run on the router for a few minutes and then reboot the router. It should wake up happy, back on 1.13 with default settings. Revert laptop settings back to firewalls engaged, IP assignment to auto/DHCP and DNS to auto. Log into the Gargoyle using the ethernet cable, set up password, set up wifi networks etc as per any normal first install.

I'm very pleased to have got it going again as the router was only 2 years old. I don't really know what happened with the 1.14 firmware but it disagreed with something. My other A7 is running it fine, but with a different configuration (it's through a PPPoE link).

I've had loads of good info off far more knowledgeable people than myself on this site, and hopefully this will help somebody else.

[Lantis]

Great outcome