RV110W Restore router settings doesn't work

[danzeloof]

I can backup the router settings on an RV110W, but not restore them.  I get an "unable to write" error. (probably not the exact verbiage).  Defective router, or firmware issue?

[Tom Watts]

Hi Dan, it could be what you said a defective router or firmware problem. It may also be a corrupt backup file.

-Tom
Please mark answered for helpful posts

[danzeloof]

I've already made several backups and then trying to restore them fails, so I doubt that the backup file(s) are corrupt.  I was hoping that someone with this router can confirm that they can successfully backup and restore so I can determine whether the router has a problem (I bought it not too long ago and will get an exchange) or, if there is a problem, hope cisco can address it in a future firmware upgrade.

[Tom Watts]

Hi Dan, I can confirm it works... I have almost every SB product

You may want to check what browser you're using or if you're making the backup over the internet like through a VPN or restoring the backup through a VPN as it may corrupt the process.

It wouldn't hurt to upgrade the firmware, default the unit and try to upload the file to see. Is the router behaving oddly any other way?

The original firmware didn't have a site to site tunnel feature. If you're trying load a new file over and old software that can be a cause of failure too.

-Tom
Please mark answered for helpful posts

[danzeloof]

The firmware is current, and I am doing the backup restore over our LAN using either IE or Firefox.  I even plugged directly to the router to eliminate anything else on the LAN.  I'm probably just going to take that sucker back for an exchange.

[cam_ciscotwo]

I also have the rv110w version 1.2.1.4

Firmware MD5 checksum:

9db70c4be4a4377bfdef5e3d398214d8

It will not restore save startup or backup configuration. If I make one simple change to a defaulted configuration like an SSIDD name and restore it works. I trie it today feb-5-2016.

If I make a more substantial change it does not restore giving the error "File cannot be changed"

[MrAnderson69uk]

Hi,

I've got 2 of these routers and both came out of the box with the latest firmware 1.2.0.9.

Neither one can restore a backup. I even tried to clear the current 'Startup Settings' - this just rebooted the router the same as 'Reset to factory default'.

I tried restoring a backup file to the in 'Backup Configuration' area.

All attempts to restore a backup to this router result in a Red Circled X and 'The file cannot be changed.'

I'm use a Mac running OSX 10.8.3 Mountain Lion and have tried Safari (latest version 6.0.4), Firefox (latest version 21.0) and Opera (latest version 12.11 build 1661).

I've just created a Virtual Machine running Windows 7 and used IE 9 (the default browser) and this did work.

So, please make the Web Server of the Router be compliant to all OS's and Web Browsers. It's is not satisfactory to restrict the use of the Router's Admin pages to IE.

I expect the interfacing with the filesystem is a most likely issue. I found that even the RV180 had issues with Mac Safari. I couldn't resore a Backup configuration as the popup window to choose the file to restore failed to open. I had to use Opera or Firefox.

CISCO, please fix the web services on these routers. It seems that this latest RV series (RV110x and RV180x) both have issues with Mac web browsers.

In fact, even the WRV200 has issues when using the Mac's Safari browser to administer the VPN configuration. In doing so, it crashes the router and it's web server, breaks all established VPNs and if you accessing it remotely you have to wait 5, 10 or 15 minutes for the router to restart itself (haven't actually timed it, but it a PITA having to wait for something you have no other access to - the WRV200 is wunning the latest acailable firmware too 1.0.39 ETSI)

[MrAnderson69uk]

Having said above that the Virtual Machine running Windows 7 and using IE 9 to download and then upload a configuration, I can't seem to get it to work again on the other fully configured RV110W router.

The whole operation seems so flakey and when you're relying on being able to restore a backed up configuration, this needs to be 100% reliable with any web browser on any machine, Windows, Linux, Mac OS X etc.

I keep falling in to this trap that perhaps the next device from Linksys/CISCO will be better and fully tested before being released to the public. Instead it still seems we are beta testers.

One more issue with the RV180 is that in the LAN configuration section, if you enter a Domain, you can't remove it. This then presents a problem with DHCP clients. On a Mac computer, if you want to use the hostname of a device you have to terminate it with a '.' to resolve the name within the domain. In addition to this the hostname of the router itself wouldn't resolve. The only way to remove the router's domain entry was to edit the configuration file, remove the domain field text leaving empty quotes and set the checksum to 0 so the router would accept the modified file.

I found the checksum fix in another thread asking how to configure many RV180 routers with similar edited base configurations - I can't do this with the RV110W as it doesn' even allow repeatable backup and restore of unmonidifed configuration.

[danzeloof]

Thanks Adrian -

I returned my router and got a brand new one but it did not solve my problem.  Just a piece of junk IMO

[MrAnderson69uk]

Hi Tom,

One question, when you said 'I can confirm it works... I have almost every SB product', how much configuration had you done to the device?

I've configured LAN, DHCP, WiFi, VPN (added 2 PTPP Users) and users for Adminitration - changed the 'cisco' username to 'admin' and disabled the 'Password Complexity Settings' option.

I have a feeling the last few changes cause configurations to fail as I progressively made changes and tried a backup and restore.

In fact, here's the steps to make it fail.

Note: No Internet connection was available as I don't have ADSL here and was just setting these up for a friend. I also quit the automated Wizard to configure after clearing the config so I could go step by step configuring and testing backup/restore.

• Change 'cisco' admin user password
• Set up WAN PPPoE for connection to an ADSL Modem
• Change LAN IP Address

Backup/Restore WORKED

• Setup DynDNS account details

Backup/Restore WORKED

• Setup WiFi - Set first SSID Security mode to WPA2 Personal/Mixed (added passcode), changed Wireless Band to 24/40 and SSID name

Backup/Restore FAILED

There we go, not much CISCO's QA department had to do to test this ... took all of about 10 mins with the 3 reboots and confi. changes.

CISCO, please tell, why do joe public have to test your products??? Do you not have a QA department and test plans in place???

Now you have the procedure to test, please fix the issue.

Obviously ths was just one way to get it to fail and it may be something else like timing between doing a backup then restoring or the number of times the web interface had been prodded by the user causing it to fail.

This is using the current 1.2.0.9 firmware as shipped on a RV110W-E-G5-K9 V02 unit I received from Amazon.co.uk yesterday (31 May 2013). The other unit was the same and received from another company a week before - they were useless and failed to source the second unit in over a month, hence the second one from Amazon.

[MrAnderson69uk]

As I'm a professional software developer, I have the incremental backups from before and after the WiFi configuration changes.

The saved config after the DynDNS changes will restore, so I can now see which settings in the WiFi Config causes the failure - just simple debugging if it had been caught by the developers before passing to QA and releaseing on the public.

So, the finer points of WiFi Chagnes from default values

• Set Network Mode to G/N Mixed

Backup/Restore WORKED

• Set Wireless Band to 20/40

Backup/Restore WORKED

• Change SSID 'ciscob1' to 'anotherSSID' - SSID Broadcast was automatically ticked, so I left it.

Backup/Restore WORKED

• Setup Security to WPA2-Personal Mixed and set the security key.

Backup/Restore FAILED

My security key is 35 characters long with simple Upper and Lower case characers and an @ symbol roughly in the middle.

[MrAnderson69uk]

So, now I've done your work for you, please let me know when you'll be providing me - and every other custom who has paid you for a working device - with a fixed firmware build?

I bet 99% of them made the backup and have no idea that their action was futile and haven't tried restoring it - it'll be a sad day for them!

[MrAnderson69uk]

Another update, I retries the Wireless Security section again with these settings

• Set Security to WPA2-Personal Mixed and set the security key to 'ShortSecurityKey' ...thereby being shorter than the previous 35 character key.

Backup/Restore WORKED

So, is it becuase it's shorter or because it's not got a '@' character???

Well, it would seem that an '@' character breaks it. I set the security key to 'Short@SecurityKey' and it broke the backup/restore. But then to be sure, I did it again by replaced the '@' with another character and it too failed.

So, it's not the character, but in fact the length. The first shorter key was by chance just 16 chars long and adding the '@' or another char simply made it longer than what seems to be a 16 character limit. Which goes against your own help pages citing the IEEE 802.11i WPA2 final standard of 8 to 63 ASCII printable character (ASCII code 32 to 126).

I verified this simply by using '1234567890123456' and then '12345678901234567'. The later failed.

The combination of Wireless Network Mode and Wireless Security Mode may also have some bearing on it as chosing WPA Personal resulted in a popup warning over key kength.

The key length tests were done only in G/N-Mixes and N-Only modes using WPA2-Personal Mixed - I don't really have time to test all the combinations, nor should I really have to!

[MrAnderson69uk]

Seems the password for PTPP VPN Usernames also casue issues preventing the restore to complete. Perhaps length or valid caracters - I used long password of 41 characters which also included an '@' character. A shorter PW of 16 characters with an '@' worked so it seem to be length related.

Considering the less secure nature of PTPP VPN over the better IPSEC, for which there still isn't iPhone and Mac support for QuickVPN and the iPhone's native CISCO logo'd IPSEC VPN settings don't work with this or other WRVxxx/RVxxx CISCO routers), please increase the password length limit imposed in the config backups.

[cevavichi]

I have another problem with Backup/Restore. I will open a new thread because it is not exactly the same, but they could be related. I will call the new thread: "Problems with ISA550 restore backups from other devices "