Unbricking a TP-Link Archer C7 v2 Router

August 22, 2016

I’m a pro at using things incorrectly, so of course I’d brick my Archer C7 v2 a few hours after I got it. Fortunately, however, I didn’t find flashing working firmware too difficult. Here’s a quick attempt at a guide:

Give your machine an IP address of 192.168.0.66/24, stopping any existing network daemons (e.g., NetworkManager). With iproute2 on GNU/Linux:
```
# systemctl stop NetworkManager
# ip link set dev eth0 up
# ip addr add 192.168.0.66/24 dev eth0
```

Install a TFTP server. I used tftpd-hpa:

# apt-get install tftpd-hpa
# systemctl start tftpd-hpa

Put your firmware image in the docroot as ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin. Debian seems to use /srv/tftp/ by default, so I did something like:
```
# cp ~/my/firmware/image /srv/tftp/ArcherC7v2_tp_recovery.bin
```
Plug your computer into LAN port 1.
Turn off the router with the power button.
Press and hold the WPS/reset button.
Turn the router back on again. When the WPS light lights up and stays lit, you can let off the WPS/reset button.

Tada! With any luck, your router is de-bricked. To tidy up and re-connect:

# ip addr del 192.168.0.66/24 dev eth0
# ip link set dev eth0 down
# systemctl start NetworkManager

I learned most of this from the OpenWRT wiki, which should have more information.