quick type now so i dont forget, format later
oops! deleted ubus instead of whatever i shouldve deleted
router froze then after a reboot the cfgs are all messed up. even said "(none)" on it's identifier and most of the overview page was missing
tried just restoring config but as I suspected, it doesn't install missing packages
figured maybe i can just start over now, gotta do the upgrade to DSA openwrt eventually. Not compatible for upgrade as I suspected, gotta do a full reinstall.
k np, do a factory reset, restore cfgs. ofc still missing packages, reinstall them. everything is online except, hey... I can't connect from outside?!
after beating my head against the desk for a while I find that the IP is correct, DNS did infact propagate outside and that it MUST be inside my network.
realized that the cfg i uploaded was before the VLAN upgrade... sigh
lesson learned. make another backup of configs after you finish your work/upgrade!