If I Update Router Firmware Will I Lose My Passwords

If I Update Router Firmware Will I Lose My Passwords

This is a common home networking problem, where we find nosotros’ve accidentally unplugged or pressed a reset button on our Wi-Fi router, and we want to know what really happens when we do this. Do users become disconnected, and exercise whatever settings change? What practice nosotros need to do if nosotros’ve reset our router unintentionally?

Hither is an overall answer:

Quickly pressing a reset button just reboots the router without changing any usernames, passwords or settings, and all devices should exist able to quickly reconnect. Factory resetting your router however returns all settings to default and devices will have to re-enter login credentials to connect.

In other words, if you’ve but washed a basic quick reboot of your router, there’s usually nothing to worry about except for a very curt term disconnection of users from the router as it reboots. If you’ve fully reset your router to manufacturing plant settings, it’s can sometimes be a picayune more problematic, but all the same isn’t usually the end of the world. There might merely exist a niggling more customization of settings needed to go everything back to how it was before yous reset the router.

We’ll encompass both scenarios here (quick reboot and total reset), so you know exactly what you’ve washed, what the effects are and how to restore everything to how it was earlier.

Note
– If you’ve got the slightly different trouble of your router continually
randomly
resetting itself without y’all doing anything, meet our
separate guide
on this.

What Happens If Yous Practise A Quick Reset On Your Router?

If y’all accidentally practise a quick reset of the router, information technology’s no big deal. By quick reset, we mean simply quickly pressing the standard, quick reset push button that is on the front end or side of virtually routers, perchance pushing information technology in briefly when y’all didn’t mean to. Or perhaps you pulled the router plug out from the wall by accident, or turned off the ability socket. In almost all cases, this doesn’t alter whatever settings, only it will disrupt connections for a very short time.

Here’s a run down of what to look if you do this:

  • All devices remain connected to the router. Most times, you won’t even need to re-enter the password (occasionally, some devices might accept to)
  • The Wi-Fi username(s) and password(south) all remain the same.
  • All router settings remain the same
  • At that place volition be a disruption of connectivity (usually for effectually 1-two minutes) while the router reboots.
  • Downloads may be cancelled and accept to be restarted. Sometimes they tin can be resumed from where yous left off, but non e’er.
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To fully reset a router, you mostly either need to press a pin into a hole or push in a reset button for 5-x seconds. Nosotros’ll cover this in the next section, and it’s very difficult to do either of these things accidentally. So if you notice you’ve quickly flicked a reset button on a router when yous didn’t mean to, in almost all cases, it’s just going to initiate a quick reboot, which isn’t a large deal.

Therefore if you lot’ve just quickly rebooted your router, at that place isn’t too much to worry nigh other than possibly some annoyance from other users on the network who’ve had their streaming/gaming/Skype interrupted. Users who were downloading big files and accept to start over might be a scrap more annoyed. But nothing else changes and you lot can conduct on every bit before once the router reboots.

What Happens If You Do a Full Mill Reset Of Your Router?

Now let’s cover the slightly more problematic case when you actually fully reset your router to default settings, although it’south rare that this happens unintentionally.

When nosotros say full factory reset, on almost routers this means a small little pigsty that you press a rubber pin into for around ten seconds to initiate a full reset of the router. Information technology’due south ofttimes different to the quick reset button.

However, this is where information technology can get a little confusing, as different routers do work differently in terms of what buttons do. To help out readers with different routers, let’s encompass a couple of common scenarios of how router buttons tin can work:

Scenario #1
– The router’s got a simple reset
button
somewhere prominent, and also a reset/mill reset
hole
somewhere else. This is pretty articulate. The reset
push button
apace resets the router (you shouldn’t lose any usernames/passwords). The reset
hole
is what you push a pin into for the total reset (will lose details).

It often looks something like this:

Scenario #2
– The router seems to simply accept one reset push sticking out, with no reset hole anywhere. When this is the case, information technology’s more likely that
quickly pressing
the reset push button will do a quick reset (nada to worry about), whereas
pressing and holding
the reset push button for 10 seconds will do the total factory reset (will lose details).

Admittedly, information technology’s hard to printing in the manufactory reset button/hole for several seconds
accidentally.
Nearly times when users reset a router unintentionally, it’s a quick reboot, and no big deal.

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Withal, if y’all practice detect you lot’ve washed this when y’all didn’t hateful to, here’s what unremarkably happens:

  • All custom Wi-Fi SSIDs/usernames and passwords to access the network will be lost and reset to the defaults indicated on the sticker on the back of the router. And then any users who need to reconnect will need to find the router again on the network list and re-enter the default password to utilise the Wi-Fi.
  • If y’all have likewise set custom values for the router login admin/password (to change settings), these will also be reset back to the default values indicated on the sticker on the back.
  • If any gamers have set up a static IP for their console on the router, this will be deleted and they’ll
    take to practise it again.
  • Any other custom settings that were configured on the router (eg. QoS, DNS settings, DMZ) will exist lost and demand to exist reconfigured.
  • Factory resets can sometimes also take longer than quick resets, with a disruption of connection for sometimes several minutes.

What To Exercise If You Factory Reset Your Router

Permit’s rapidly cover some basic steps to take if you lot realize y’all’ve fully reset your router when you didn’t mean to:

Step #1 – Get Details
– If you fully reset your router, all Login IPs/usernames/passwords will revert back to their defaults, equally on the sticker on the back of the router. So to re-admission the router, you lot’ll have to use these details once again.

Check the dorsum of the router for a sticker that looks something like this:

The wireless network name (SSID) and wireless countersign are what you use to connect to the Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi name(s) should automatically broadcast over again for you to find, but occasionally you lot may have to re-enable SSID broadcast of 1 or both bands (2.4 GHz and five GHz) from inside the router settings. Look nether
Wireless
settings for this. See
our article
on enabling/disabling Wi-Fi bands.

The router login/admin/password beneath information technology are what you use to get into the router settings. We’ll embrace this below.

Step #two – Log Into Your Router
– Type the default Login IP on the back of the router into whatever browser accost bar of any device connected to it. Often 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1. Employ a network cable or
WPS
to connect if everything has been reset and you’ve lost access via Wi-Fi. Then a box should come up upwards for you to blazon in the admin/password, which again should be now as listed on the back of the router. This should take you to the router settings folio. Meet
here
if you’re stuck on this step.

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Stride #3 – Re-configure Router and Wireless Usernames/Passwords
– In one case you are inside the router’south settings pages, you should then be able to re-customize the router login/username/password, either to what they were before y’all reset them, or something different. The menus should be pretty articulate on this – perhaps under the
Security, or in that location may be a specific menu for Passwords/SSIDs/Usernames. It varies between routers.

Be aware though that the router admin/password, and the Wi-Fi username/password are two split up things that ideally demand to exist configured separately for maximum security on a network.

The router IP/admin/password is what you employ to actually become into the router’due south settings to modify them (like we are showing in this section), whereas the
Wi-Fi
username/SSID and password is what you use to actually admission the wireless network and utilize the router to connect to the internet (when you actually detect a Wi-Fi router on a network listing, and put in the password to connect and kickoff surfing online on a device you’re using).

Wireless passwords can usually be changed under
Wireless,
Security
or
Network
settings pages or similar. You could leave them as the defaults on the sticker, but
this is less secure
on wireless home networks.

Pace #4 – Reconfigure Whatever Other Custom Settings
– If there were any other settings that you had configured yourself on the router, these will be lost and you’ll have to practice it again. This is often the case for gamers, but other users can lose custom settings besides. Hither are some links to articles for re-doing some mutual settings:

  • Meet here
    for re-configuring a static IP (reserving an IP) for a games console or other device and also port forwarding. All custom port rules volition have to be re-entered.
  • See here
    for re-configuring QoS to prioritize a device on a network.
  • Run into here
    for re-configuring DMZ for gamers.
  • If yous had configured any DNS settings at the router level, either for gaming or blocking/unblocking sites, this volition have to exist done once again.
    Meet hither
    for tips on this.

If I Update Router Firmware Will I Lose My Passwords

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