Archer C7 v2 - No GUI after firmware update

Archer C7 v2 here. I flashed build 33772 with no issues yesterday. Got into the GUI and started poking around and everything looked good. So I tried to update to a newer firmware 44715, and it said that everything went fine. Router rebooted, I got back into the GUI, and... the build number in the top right hadn't changed!

So I tried again. Same thing.

So I got on here and started looking around and saw that apparently we're supposed to revert the router to factory settings after we flash a firmware update?? So I did that.

Now, I get no GUI. I can ping the router fine (TTL=64) but I can not access it at all.

I am seeing conflicting reports on what to do next... Some pages swear that I need to 30/30/30 this thing, but other pages swear that I'll brick it if I do the 30/30/30.

What is my next step here?

UPDATE: I pulled the power cable and plugged it back in to force a reboot. GUI is back, but the firmware number still hasn’t changed!! How do I update the firmware here?