FWP rejecting all attempts to work in router mode.

I recently purchased Firewalla Purple for my home network. I originally didnt have any networking equipment besides my Netgear Modem/Router combo C7000v2. I plugged in the FWP and installed it correctly with simple mode. Everything is great but I began to notice some performance issues with monitoring, so I come to find out that my Netgear device is not compatible with simple mode, but it is compatible with DHCP mode. So, i make the switch, properly turning off DHCP on my C7000v2, and turning on DHCP mode on FWP. After doing this, network performance got increasingly worse overtime. It would start with connection dropping maybe once a day, to every single time my iPhone connected to the Wi-Fi. I was not reaching any websites, no apps were reaching the internet. Nothing! I attempted to do some testing and from what i gathered, my iPhone could not connect to the Wi-Fi, i would get "destination host unreachable" ping replies when i would ping my iPhone's IP address from my laptop (which had no issues with internet connectivity). also worth mentioning that i was getting "large subnet detected" notifications in the firewalla app, even though everything is auto-configured. so, fed up, i went out and bought a TP-Link RE505X wi-fi access point. i figured i could try to use Purple in router mode as that is what is advised. After a long time troubleshooting, FWP would only connect to my C7000v2 (which i had switched to bridge mode by this point) and grab internet from my ISP, ANY ATTEMPT to connect to the TP-Link device was futile. it was getting no internet. it was showing up on my device list, but no internet when plugged into FWP's LAN port. So, fed up once more, i decided, screw it, ill try an Orbi router. I took back the access point and purchased an ORBI router, and it works great with my C7000v2 device. but now i think my FWP is bricked or something. i am constantly getting alerts saying my FWP is offline, that i need to be closer to the device, despite putting my phone PHYSICALLY RIGHT NEXT to the box. any attempt to reboot, unpair, or factory reset the device from the app is futile. doesnt work. ill physically unplug the FWP and that does nothing either. ill physically unplug my modem/router, does nothing. i am even trying to set the dang thing up in simple mode but because my phone is not connecting to FWP no matter what i do, i cannot configure anything at this point. im really upset, the box was working great when i first got it, and ive only had it a few weeks now, but now it is almost completely useless. is there anything i can do? i attempted to hard reset but i think i did it wrong. i am having a hard time feeling the button and i dont want to push too hard and ruin something.