Tech got it working.
Try crash recovery again. He said hold in reset button (power off and then on) until it starts blinking amber and release. When he releases, the LED goes solid amber for a little bit then starts blinking amber.
Use IE 11 and go to 192.168.0.1 (not 50). This should take you to the recovery page. Downgrade to 1.01. Start it and walk away for 15 minutes. He said it took a long time but the extender eventually rebooted and got 5 green LEDs and worked.