I've been running Open VPN on dd-wrt for over 4 years on several different firmwares with no real issue except that it streams movies to my Roku a bit slower than I'd like. So I thought I'd give Tomato by Shibby a try to see if there was any noticable difference.
I followed the procedures as directed:
1) flash to OEM/stock Netgear firmware
2) use Genie to flash to tomato-R7000-initial.chk file
3) finally flash to tomato-R7000-ARM--136-AIO-64K.trx file from 192.168.1.1
Step 1) was a breeze.
However, after initiating the 'upgrade' in Step 2) I cannot connect to either of the Netgear networks (NETGEAR42 and NETGEAR42-5) by wifi. MacBook Pro says both are unavailable while iPad asks for a password -- I've tried all the obvious ones plus the one written on the router. I'm not being asked for a username/password combo, only a password like you would when connecting any smart device to a wi-fi network.
Accessing 192.168.1.1 is out of the question since I can't even connect to either network in the first place.
I tried 30/30/30 as well as the "backdoor" 25s WPS method, but again, I am not connected to anything so it's not a matter of blocked access. I simply can't connect to begin with. The reset button on the back does nothing, nor do repeated attempts to power on/off from the wall. My MacBook has no ethernet and of course, the iOS devices don't, either...
Am I missing something hidden in plain sight? The power and wifi LEDs on the router are illuminated so it can't be bricked...or is it?
I pinged shibby about this, and it looks like all you really have to do is erase the nvram and you should be good to go. However, you'll need a cable to do it -- for anyone playing around with firmware, it's a good item to have around in the event something goes awry, in any case.
http://myopenrouter.com/article/how-debrick-or-recover-netgear-r7000-r63...
This video (by shibby) shows how to erase the nvram when connected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w10jLqRmdLM
I think the challenge here is that you don't have a way to connect directly to the router; getting a USB-TTL cable will solve your woes.
Also -- make absolutely certain to get the proper cable. In Kong's guide, he uses the FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 which I have also used.
http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/Cables/USBTTLSerial.htm
I believe that Mouser or DigiKey has them but are probably available elsewhere, too.
Many thanks for the replies, gents, and for all the helpful links.
I live in Japan and was able to find the cable online here: http://direct.daitron.co.jp/shop/g/g7470103000/
Before taking that step I'll take a look at some of the IPv4 suggestions above. I'm just an ex-pat trying to stream tv from home, so this is starting to reach the upper limit of my tech savy but I'll approach it systematically and see if I can get it fixed.
Again, thanks, and I'll report back with what did or didn't work.