Force router reset while away

2oldman wrote:
This router was impossible to set up. It kept asking me to reset my modem, which I do not have. The instructions were clearly meant for someone on DSL with a modem. How old is that?? I could not get thru setup on a fiber connection. Anyway, WM took it back, no problem. Believe those Amazon reviews.

It was probably expecting to get an address (DHCP) on its WAN/Internet port, and wasn't. I'm not sure how provider fiber bridges (they call them various names, like ONU or ONT) provision inside the customer premises (I have cable), but DSL and cable typically expect to hand out a single address to a single device connected to them (and the rest of the home network is behind that). Restarting them makes them forget the previous device and hand out an address to a new one. Simply unplugging the old and plugging in the new should make it happen but, well, they're made to be cheap not robust.

I'd guess that power cycling whatever thing the ISP put there would have taken care of it.