WHY does my ATT Fiber Modem/Router keep resetting to factory defaults

I have a BGW320-505 and I've had this same thing happen to me twice in the last two weeks.  My family was using the internet on a Sunday afternoon and then...the Wifi connection was dropped.  I noticed the modem's light started blinking and I lost my wired connection as well.  When the modem stopped blinking...everything had been reset to the Factory Settings.

Thankfully, I found the tool in the AT&T troubleshooting pages that allowed me to quickly restore my Wifi configuration from the backup.  But all the other tweaks that I've made were lost...including changing the device Access Code, changes to the DHCP range, etc.

FWIW, I found someone had posted the following on dslreports.com:

Anyone having issues with the latest update 4.23.4? My modem seems to reboot and reset to factory settings. Its done it twice in the last 3 days. I did a Chat online with AT&T and the tech said there was something wrong with the modem software / firmware. My guess then it would be that the issues is then related to the new update. Anyone her having the same reboot factory reset?

The timing seems to coincide with when my problems started occuring as well.  And my modem does indicate that it is running the 4.23.4 firmware.

I would try and revert the device back to an older firmware, but I'd fear that AT&T would just automatically push 4.23.4 back onto my modem and it would start all over again.

ATT replaced my BGW210 two years ago, extremely reluctantly, because of this exact issue. It would always take me an hour to redo the settings after a crash. Now it has happened 3 times with the replacement. I just redid the settings (after the family complained all day that the internet wasn't working while I was at work) and it indicates it's on firmware 4.22.5. I don't see any settings to disable auto firmware updates. Very frustrating.

@PrecipiceCA Where on earth did you find any type of backup/restore settings? I've looked and have not found anything.

@Rsg12345 Same here, but I saw no way to disable updates.

I've made the decision to just leave everything at default settings, disable the WiFi, enable IP Passthrough, and just use my old gig router for WiFi, DHCP, and NAT... At least this way, when the BGW320 inevitably resets again all I will have to do is disable WiFi and enable IP Passthrough to my router in order to be back online again without having to manually input WiFi, Static IP, and Port Forward settings from scratch again.

What a crap device with crap support from a company that clearly doesn't care. Oh well.

That is crazy! How would a baby monitor cause the router to factory reset?? They must think we are complete (enter whatever word here that would be censored)!

I have come to this post.. Because after 6 freaking years of perfect service, suddenly a problem has occurred. It started right after I added a Wyze cam Pam v3 to my network. On a BGW210-700 4.23.4 ... It would wipe itself out for some reason and I wasn't even home. What the heck ATT? Perhaps Wyze has some blame here too? No idea.

@tfourk I don’t think it was the Wyze cam. I have no Wyze cams on my network. It was probably a coincidence that the failed firmware update happened at the same time.

@TheStonedDruid I see you went with using your own router instead.  I contemplated that too, but I haven't invested in Wifi 6 hardware yet, so the Wi-fi built-in to this Nokia is better than my older 802.11ac setup.

FWIW, here's where I found the capability of restoring the Wi-Fi configuration settings.  Hopefully, this is helpful for anyone else with this problem.

1) Login to the myAT&T site.

2) Navigate to:  https://www.att.com/support/internet/

3) Under "Troubleshooting Topics" near the bottom of the page, select "Manage Wi-Fi"

4) The page reloads and you'll need to find the "Your Wi-Fi Info" section.

5) Within it, there's a button labelled:  "Restore my Wi-Fi settings"

6) This should take you to a page telling you what your Wi-Fi settings were and when they were last backed up.  There's a button here which says "Restore now" which you can click and it will send all of your Wi-Fi configuration settings back to your modem.

Sadly, what's left is to restore all of the other network settings manually.  Because I don't think the modem has any other means of backing up/restoring settings.  I've seen others suggest that you screenshot each settings page, if it's particularly complex.

P.S. - *knock on wood* My modem hasn't reset since I last posted here.

@PrecipiceCA this will restore wifi settings but not port forwarding or IP allocations, correct?