Fixing an ASUS router that is stuck in AP mode

10 Oct 2014

Have an ASUS router stuck in AP (Access Point) mode and can't access the admin GUI? Me too, until about five minutes ago.

If you're anything like me, you've got enough bricked switches/routers lying around to construct a house out of. I would too, if my wife would let me. This time around you're lucky, and fixing an ASUS AC68U, AC66, or, similar routers that are stuck in AP mode with an inaccessible GUI is easy.

1. Flounder around on superuser and fifty other sites looking for the answer.
2. Unplug the WAN port, reboot your router. You may need to configure your computer's IP to 192.168.1.x manually, but by now you've read 4,000 pages on how to do that.
3. Connect to the admin. GUI like you normally would (The default is 192.168.1.1)
4. Disable AP mode
5. Celebrate!
6. Don't do it again :)

Now for the backstory: I was configuring a router on my network (an AC66) into AP mode and apparently connected to the main router instead: Oops! At least this time around it was my fault, and not just crappy firmware.

After a few hours of digging, firmware recovery attempts and even a few amazon replacement orders... I thought to myself, what if I assign my router an IP via DHCP myself (pretend one of my systems is the WAN)? Nah, too much effort, let's just unplug the WAN port and hope it gives up on access point mode at least temporarily so I can access it.

Sure enough, it did :) Enjoy this fix!