Locked out of your router: what actually works, by make

First, work out which problem you have

Three different things get called "the router password", and people routinely try the wrong one for an hour before realising.

• The Wi-Fi password connects devices to the network. Usually printed on the unit.
• The admin password opens the settings page. Often a different value entirely, and on provider-supplied hubs it is usually printed alongside the Wi-Fi details but labelled separately.
• The broadband account details are what the router uses to log in to your provider. You may need these after a reset, and only your provider can give them to you.

Check the unit before anything else

On most provider-supplied hubs the admin password is printed on the hardware — on a pull-out card, a sticker on the base, or a label behind a sliding panel. It is worth genuinely looking, including behind removable panels, because manufacturers often print it in a second place specifically for when the card gets lost.

Which makes can be recovered

If there is no recovery route

Then you have two options, and they are both worse than finding the password. Track down whoever set the unit up. Or factory reset it and rebuild the configuration from nothing.

A configuration backup does not save you here. The backup contains the same admin password you do not know, so restoring it puts you straight back where you started. This catches people out constantly.

Before resetting a working business router, be honest about whether you can rebuild it: the WAN settings, the firewall rules, the port forwarding, the VLANs, the VPN tunnels. If the answer is no, get someone in who can.