Red Internet (WAN) light stuck on your Asus RT-AC68U?

Do you have the new Asus RT-AC68U AC1900 mesh WiFi Router, but it suddenly stopped connecting to your cable modem or WAN Ethernet connection?  And the red center LED is stuck on RED, even after power cycling the router, unplugging the router and everything else you're supposed to do?  Well, if you are, you've been through the manual, the FAQ and the website and found nothing.

After a brief call to tech support - who, surprisingly was open at 9PM on a weeknight - he diagnosed the problem as the router had lost it's configuration.  Not sure why or how, although we'd had several storms the previous week; perhaps a combination of power changes and static just confused the poor thing. 

So, what's the solution to no WAN / no Internet on your Asus RT-AC68U AC1900 router?  Pretty straight forward.  First, unplug everything from it - your USB drives, the WAN Ethernet cable, everything but the power. 

 

Now that everything is unplugged get a pen, pencil or paperclip and press and hold the 'reset' button -- that's the unlabled button on the diagrams, directly above the power input and power button on the left side of the image above.  Hold it for a full 15 second count. 

That flashes the Asus RT-AC68U AC1900 router back to factory state and creates two unlocked WiFi networks.  Connect to either of the unlocked networks with your tablet, phone or PC.  You'll be prompted to set up a username, password, network name and network password.  Apply those settings, plug in the WAN Ethernet cable again and you'll be back on the air!  

Unfortunately it also wipes any customization you've made for time limits by device, NAT translations, mesh networking etc, so you will have to spend a bit of time re-configuring that, but you're back on the air with your wireless internet!

Hope this helps someone else who has a red light on their Asus RT-AC68U router WAN port for the Internet!

- Will England