Disappointed with the Tomato firmware - partially bricked ASUS RT-N12?

[nboy22]

Hey everyone, I'm in need of some help here with my ASUS RT-N12. I bought the router because I read that it was upgradable to DD-WRT and tomato firmware. Here's what I did so far:

1. Installed DD-WRT via the GUI of router with stock ASUS firmware.
2. Confirmed access to DD-WRT GUI via the default gateway IP: 192.168.1.1. (Wireless was working at this point, and had switched it's name to "dd-wrt"
3. Installed the latest tomato firmware by renaming the .trz file (or whatever it is) to a .bin and uploading it via the DD-WRT GUI.
4. This is where I start to have major problems. The install of tomato has pretty much bricked the router, and I cannot fix it so far with everything I have tried. I sat there for an hour just trying to get the thing to give me internet via ethernet cable. It seems as though tomato has COMPLETELY shut the wireless routing off as well. Eventually I just gave up for the night, but noticed that my internet came back on. Here's the really, really weird part - My router's default gateway has switched to 10.18.75.10 and my IPV4 address is 10.18.75.18.

Why would that even happen? It should be 192.168.1.1 (default), correct? I never read anything about tomato changing IP schemes like that. Oh yeah, and guess what it does when I type 10.18.75.10 into my web browser? It prompts me for a password much like any router would, but it says Linksys E3000. I understand this may be due to the tomato firmware, however, even when i enter the default username and password admin/admin, it will not let me in. No combination of admin/administrator/password defaults will let me in.

How am I supposed to roll back my firmware if I can't even access my default gateway?

I found a way with the CD that came with the ASUS RT-N12, but it cannot find the router at all, and I suspect because my IP scheme has changed significantly. Oh yeah, and I followed the manual's instruction to put my ASUS router into restoration mode, but it still doesn't work.

Edit: One more thing I forgot to mention. I read about another recovery method through telnet. Tried using telnet to get into the default gateway address "10.18.75.10" and it says it cannot connect to it. Also tried 192.168.1.1 just for fun, but that's a no-go as well.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I cannot believe this.

 

[Gillbot]

Why do you NEED dd-wrt or Tomato? Plus, I don't think it's advisable to go from dd-wrt to Tomato. The FAQ I read suggested installing stock firmware over dd-wrt before flashing to tomato, though I could be mistaken as it's been a while since I flashed mine.

 

[Unheard]

Nevermind, I need to read more.

 

[nboy22]

Why do you NEED dd-wrt or Tomato? Plus, I don't think it's advisable to go from dd-wrt to Tomato. The FAQ I read suggested installing stock firmware over dd-wrt before flashing to tomato, though I could be mistaken as it's been a while since I flashed mine.

I want to try the firmware out. I have been having issues with the stock firmware acting schizophrenic and not even knowing that it's assigning DHCP addresses to devices like a security DVR. It will assign the address to the DVR system, but when you check the DHCP lease log, there is no entry, although the device clearly received a local IP from the router. The router cannot even communicate with itself, so I started doing research.

Lots of people said the stock ASUS firmware is really, really horrible. I also read tons of people giving praise to the tomato firmware. Everything I read indicated you needed to upgrade to tomato from dd-wrt. I tried to directly upgrade via the tomato bin file, and the firmware upgrader on the GUI failed. I installed dd-wrt and had it working perfectly fine, but things went south when I upgraded to tomato from dd-wrt.

 

[SickBeast]

I've un-bricked my WRT54G before. IIRC, it involved hard resetting the unit by holding the reset button for quite a long time (either 10 or 30 seconds, perhaps more).

 

[nboy22]

I've un-bricked my WRT54G before. IIRC, it involved hard resetting the unit by holding the reset button for quite a long time (either 10 or 30 seconds, perhaps more).

I'm pretty sure that I did that for at least a minute last night, but I will look in the manual and see if there is a special way to do it. I followed their special way of trying to restore the firmware but that didn't work. What good is it if it doesn't reflash the chip with factory firmware by itself? I shouldn't have to tell it what firmware to reflash to, and even then it can't find my router.

 

[kevnich2]

It sounds like the firmware didn't take. With asus router's, you do NEED to wait 2 minutes after uploading the firmware before you power it off. In any case, unplug the power cable to the asus, hold down the reset button and power it back on. This should cause the power light to begin flashing, which indicates it's in recovery mode. From here simply set your PC to a static IP of something in the 192.168.1.x range and then tftp the firmware to 192.168.1.1 After your done, wait atleast 2 min, then unplug power cable and power cycle the unit.

Asus router's are very difficult to brick with firmware upgrades due to their recovery mode option. I've flashed several dozen with both dd-wrt and tomato. Though I usually just flash directly with tftp nowadays as it's faster once you figure out the proper steps.

 

[kevnich2]

If you need a guide to TFTP -which as I indicated is my preferred way of flashing routers as it's easier and less error prone - go here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_TFTP_Flash

Download the proper tomato firmware for your router and then just use the above guide to put it on. If it still fails, try flashing with the nvram reset firmware, then flashing again with the proper tomato firmware. Pay close attention to step 13. If you unplug power to early, the firmware won't be flashed properly and it'll leave the router in the exact state your indicating yours is in.

It may seem like a lot of steps but once you get the hang of it, the commands literally take about 20 seconds to type in.

 

[nboy22]

If you need a guide to TFTP -which as I indicated is my preferred way of flashing routers as it's easier and less error prone - go here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_TFTP_Flash

Download the proper tomato firmware for your router and then just use the above guide to put it on. If it still fails, try flashing with the nvram reset firmware, then flashing again with the proper tomato firmware. Pay close attention to step 13. If you unplug power to early, the firmware won't be flashed properly and it'll leave the router in the exact state your indicating yours is in.

It may seem like a lot of steps but once you get the hang of it, the commands literally take about 20 seconds to type in.

Ok great, Thanks for the suggestion I will try it out. I only can see one problem I might run into, and that's the fact that tomato has somehow changed my default gateway to the 10.18.75.10 number so I don't know if statically assigning a 192.168.1.* address is going to help, unless the ASUS router somehow sets itself back to 192.168.1.1 as the default gateway during recovery mode.

 

[nboy22]

If you need a guide to TFTP -which as I indicated is my preferred way of flashing routers as it's easier and less error prone - go here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Asus_TFTP_Flash

Download the proper tomato firmware for your router and then just use the above guide to put it on. If it still fails, try flashing with the nvram reset firmware, then flashing again with the proper tomato firmware. Pay close attention to step 13. If you unplug power to early, the firmware won't be flashed properly and it'll leave the router in the exact state your indicating yours is in.

It may seem like a lot of steps but once you get the hang of it, the commands literally take about 20 seconds to type in.

Awesome man, it worked. Thanks for your help. I didn't even need to do the TFTP. I programmed the static info into my computer, and this time it actually worked for some reason. Before trying TFTP, I tried to just go to 192.168.1.1 in my browser and it brought me to a screen asking me to upload initial firmware again. I uploaded dd-wrt again and it's working again!

now to figure out what went wrong with my tomato install, maybe it was the wrong firmware, even though on the tomato website I'm pretty sure it said one version was for almost all routers, and then another version was just for a few select linksys routers and nothing else.

 

[Crusty]

Before you change firmwares you must reset all settings back to default for that firmware, especially when you are switching between firmwares with different feature sets.

 

[nboy22]

Ok, well now I have an issue where tomato doesn't really seem to have a version that works with the ASUS RT-N12. I was trying TomatoUSB, which is reported to work with the ASUS RT-N12, however, when I try any method to write the firmware to the router, it tells me that the firmware image is an invalid size.

I downloaded tomato-K26USB-1.28.9054MIPSR2-beta-Ext

They said use K26 for the ASUS RT-N12, and they said use the EXT version for extended features. Just doesn't work at all - it seems like I have the wrong firmware file, but I doubt that because right on TomatoUSB's website it says it supports the ASUS RT-N12. DD-WRT is easy to get working.

Any other advice?

 

[nboy22]

Ah yes, finally got it working with tomato. I had to use the nvram get_passwd to obtain the password from dd-wrt that would be assigned to the tomato (confusing how that works).

I ended up using the standard K26 non-USB firmware of tomato USB.

Thanks to all the helpers in this thread!

 

[kevnich2]

Ah yes, finally got it working with tomato. I had to use the nvram get_passwd to obtain the password from dd-wrt that would be assigned to the tomato (confusing how that works).

I ended up using the standard K26 non-USB firmware of tomato USB.

Thanks to all the helpers in this thread!

Just an FYI - since you do finally have tomato running, it's easy to upgrade to the various versions of tomato, such as usb if you need to. Also, I would highly recommend clicking on the administration tab on the left, then configuration. Choose restore default configuration and select erase all data in NVRAM. Click ok and let it reset everything. When you do a bunch of firmware modifications, you want to clear out NVRAM to avoid issues later on. Once it's reset, you should be good to go.

Also - per this doc: http://tomatousb.org/doc:build-types

The N12 router is only compatible with the non-usb version - for reasons relating to the amount of memory. If you truly do want the USB, look at the Asus RT-N16 as it supports pretty much everything

 

[nboy22]

Just an FYI - since you do finally have tomato running, it's easy to upgrade to the various versions of tomato, such as usb if you need to. Also, I would highly recommend clicking on the administration tab on the left, then configuration. Choose restore default configuration and select erase all data in NVRAM. Click ok and let it reset everything. When you do a bunch of firmware modifications, you want to clear out NVRAM to avoid issues later on. Once it's reset, you should be good to go.

Also - per this doc: http://tomatousb.org/doc:build-types

The N12 router is only compatible with the non-usb version - for reasons relating to the amount of memory. If you truly do want the USB, look at the Asus RT-N16 as it supports pretty much everything

Thanks I'll do that! Man tomato is great, such a cool firmware program. Other companies like Linksys/Cisco should definitely take note of what they've done. For instance one of the features I already love is selecting a wireless channel, it will automatically report how many other APs in the area are using that channel and also show you the decibel level.

You're right about the non-USB. I was reading a lot of guides for the RT-N16 and assumed it was just like my RT-N12, but apparently not. Again, thanks for your help

 

[kevnich2]

Thanks I'll do that! Man tomato is great, such a cool firmware program. Other companies like Linksys/Cisco should definitely take note of what they've done. For instance one of the features I already love is selecting a wireless channel, it will automatically report how many other APs in the area are using that channel and also show you the decibel level.

You're right about the non-USB. I was reading a lot of guides for the RT-N16 and assumed it was just like my RT-N12, but apparently not. Again, thanks for your help

Yeah I won't buy a router anymore that isn't DDWRT or Tomato capable. For home use tomato is my preferred firmware. DDWRT has some other features I occasionally use in businesses.

As for the usb version - the reason it doesn't work is because the memory on the RT-N16 vs the N12. I personally have the N16 with the usb version (though I do not use it). If you go here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database You can type in the model number and see how much memory and flash each device has. Compare the differences between the N16 and the N12.

 

[nboy22]

Yeah I won't buy a router anymore that isn't DDWRT or Tomato capable. For home use tomato is my preferred firmware. DDWRT has some other features I occasionally use in businesses.

As for the usb version - the reason it doesn't work is because the memory on the RT-N16 vs the N12. I personally have the N16 with the usb version (though I do not use it). If you go here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database You can type in the model number and see how much memory and flash each device has. Compare the differences between the N16 and the N12.

Makes perfect sense. I'm running into an issue now where I'm running dd-wrt on the same type of router at one of my boss's subway restaurants. We have a security system that needs to get to the outside world so that we can view it from our main office. I DMZ'd the DVR system and I'm able to ping it from the outside world, but it still won't come up. Tried switching the default port on the DVR from port 80 to port 22222 (just picked something random).

I think no matter what firmware, this router just has issues with properly DMZ-ing or port forwarding.

 

[kevnich2]

For your port forwarding issue, first trying viewing your DVR from another system that is on your local LAN (connected to the DDWRT router). If you switched the port to 22222, then open up a web browser and go to http://ipaddressofyourdvr:22222 See if it comes up, if it doesn't then it's an issue with the DVR itself. I would suggest trying a port like 88 or 8080 though. If you are able to get to it from a local system, try port forwarding it again.

 

[nboy22]

For your port forwarding issue, first trying viewing your DVR from another system that is on your local LAN (connected to the DDWRT router). If you switched the port to 22222, then open up a web browser and go to http://ipaddressofyourdvr:22222 See if it comes up, if it doesn't then it's an issue with the DVR itself. I would suggest trying a port like 88 or 8080 though. If you are able to get to it from a local system, try port forwarding it again.

Yeah it works perfect on the LAN, I checked that first. That's why I'm so confused, this isn't my first rodeo in terms of port forwarding and DMZ host. What's interesting is that it has a static assigned IP when the router itself is handing out DHCP addresses, the dd-wrt firmware sees the DVR as an active device. When I DMZ the DVR, and then ping it from an outside source, I get request timed out. I then wait 1 hour, try again, and it will finally give me a response. Even though it gives me a ping response to the outside world, it doesn't let me into the DVR when I type the PublicIP:22222 in my web browser.