THANKS, just got this router, and tried a few times with no success. The firmware restore said it finished, but I still had the ASUS SSIDs, so as far as i could tell, didn’t work. BUT, after I let it boot and cleared the NVRAM with the WPS button, it booted up and DHCP did it’s thing and SSIDs went to tomato! YaY!

I just wanted to add that I just bought a C1 revision of this router and the latest tomato firmware, as of June 19, 2016 is not working. I just get stuck in a boot loop and the wireless lights never come on.

I’m running Merlin right now, waiting for a Tomato version to be released that works. According to research I’ve done, the C1 has a new processor and that’s what is causing the Tomato firmware problems.

That’s exactly what I meant when I said I tried the WPS button method. I aso tried the clear NVRAM button in the CFE server.

HOWEVER, the most important point is what you refer to in #2 and 3. As I noted, the wireless lights never come back on at any point. Only the power light and the ethernet port that’s plugged in. A few of the times I let it sit 30-60 minutes to see if they’d ever come on, but nothing – just the power and ethernet with it resetting itself about every 15-25 seconds.

During this time I can’t ping the router, go into CFE, or anything. I have to turn it off and go back to recovery mode and flash a different firmware.

I think it has to do with mine being a newer “C1” revision. I haven’t seen any mention of anyone flashing onto a C1 revision on any forums anywhere.

natsumero,

Thanks for the update and testing. You can try another method of erasing the NVRAM.

1. Flash the RT-AC68U using the ASUS utility.
2. Let it reboot and take note of the wireless LED.
3. Ensure the router completes it’s booting process. The wireless LED should be lighted up with little or not blinking.
4. Locate the WPS button on the RT-AC68U.
5. Power off the RT-AC68U.
6. Press and hold the RT-AC68U while powering on the router.
7. When the power LED blinks rapidly, release the WPS button.
8. Let the RT-AC68U reboot and the NVRAM should be cleared.

UPDATE: I downloaded and flashed the latest DD-WRT without a problem.

Seems to only be Tomato having an issue with this AC68U..

I tried using the CFE method as well as the restoration utility with the same issue both times.

They both finish transferring and say completed.

The utility goes on to do the restoration and says it’s completed and will reboot.

– Then it never fully comes back. The power light stays on and the ethernet I’m plugged into will continue to show activity, but I can’t get to 192.168.1.1.

I’ve done this at least 8 times, waiting up to 60minutes on some of the flashes to see if it will finally boot up correctly. It seems to just be in a boot loop – resetting itself every 15-20seconds.

When I ping 192.168.1.1 I can’t reach the destination.

I tried clearing the NVRAM after waiting using the wps button. It blinks rapidly like mentioned then reboots.. but no change. Also tried clearing NVRAM immediately before and after a flash.

I tried newer and older versions of both AdvancedTomato, as well as Tomato by Shibby – same results every time.

Using the CFE method gives the exact same results as with the Restoration utility

Flashing back to Asus Stock or Merlin works fine – it boots up after flashing in about 1 or 2 mins and I can access the GUI with no issues. I haven’t tried DDWRT because their site has been down all day.

I just received my RT-AC68U from Amazon.com . It shows Revision C1 on the back.

Could it be it’s a newer, unsupported revision?

I would really love to get AdvancedTomato running on here- Any help is appreciated!

I abandoned the Mac and switched to a laptop running Windows 10. Asus offers a version of the utility for both 32-bit and 64-bit Win10. I grabbed the 32-bit version and everything worked perfectly.

Now to set it up 🙂

I then used Taspel’s suggestion to clear the NVRAM using the “mtd-erase2 nvram” command. Then I did a “reboot” command and everything came up great!

Oh, and for some reason the Asus recovery tool wasn’t working for me this time. It kept dying at about 58%. So, I tried Shadowandy’s suggestion of using the http://192.168.1.1 in recovery mode to flash the router. That worked great, and best of all I could do it from Linux!

Thanks for everyone’s comments and this guide, I couldn’t have done it without it.

Interestingly, after flashing Tomato the router does boot up, and my old wireless SSID is discoverable but I can’t connect to the wireless or hard line. So, it does appear that the NVRAM settings stick around after a Tomato flash and are probably messing something up. After re-flashing the Asus firmware, all my old settings are still on the router as well.

Nothing I did would make it take an alternate firmware. It appeared to enter rescue mode fine, but the firmware flash tool wouldn’t see it, and I couldn’t navigate to, ping, or TFTP to the recovery interface normally available on 192.168.1.1.

I’m guessing that Asus locks these out somehow.