RT-AC88U admin credentials stopped working

[rayzorsuk]

Hi All,

After nearly 9 years of (mostly) trouble free service my RT-AC88U has decided that I can no longer be trusted to login and is refusing the admin credentials that I have been using since installing the router all those years ago. It neither accepts my credentials or the default "admin/admin" credentials. Neither the phone app or web interface accept the credentials, further I had setup ssh login access but that just says "connection refused" and does not even prompt for a login.

No other settings seem to have been lost as both 2.4 and 5 Ghz wi-fi networks are fine, as are the physical ports and port-forwarding customizations I have made.

My research indicates that the only resolution would be a factory reset and configure again from scratch, so I'm pretty much resigned to that, but was just wondering if anyone else had experienced the same or similar and any thoughts on possible causes?

Cheers,

Ray.
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[degrub]

If nothing else is symptomatic, it sounds like corrupted or failing memory.
Your friend is telling you that it is getting close to time to go and giving you time to find a suitable replacement.

 

[wouterv]

A little more history background can be useful for serious help:
Did you keep pace with the firmware release for you RT-AC88U (the latest seems 3.0.0.4.386_48322 dated 2025/03/17)?
When was the last time you was able to login to the router GUI?
Do you have Web Access from WAN enabled in the Administration > System section? (it is strongly advised to have this feature set to DISABLE).
Old firmware and / or Access from WAN enabled, may have lead to someone taking over control of your router.

A reset to factory defaults will never hurt, manual configure the router again and see what it does.

 

[rayzorsuk]

Thanks both.

I don't know exactly when I last logged on, almost certainly within the last month.

I mostly keep up with the firmware updates, though perhaps not the latest, I know it was up-to-date in December 24 when I added some AX1800 mesh devices and made sure everything had the latest FW at that point.

WAN Web access was disabled and I like to think my passwords are unguessable and hope they are sufficiently complex that "brute-forcing" them would take a very long time. However, I'm realistic and don't imagine I've covered all possible attack vectors, but as of yet the only anomaly on my home network is that I cannot logon to my router.

I think a factory reset with all new SSIDs and passwords is the next logical step, if the problem recurs then a new router will follow.

Thanks again,

Ray.
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