Your W8968 is V1?
You just enabled bridge on WR542G? As I know, bridage has to be configured on both sides.
Can you enable WDS on W8968 and try to connect to WR542G to see what happens if possible.

yap,
my 8968 is v1
for obtaining a bridge connection , I had to enable WDS on both routers. with one router wds enabled, the bridging wount work, so I did it with both routers and now I have a bridge connection in between.
but as I said before, the connection just let the local packets and requests pass, n I have no access to internet.

Maybe there is a compatiblity issue but I am not sure...
Some limitations on chipset itself...
You can confirm with TP-LINK. http://ticket.tp-link.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit/RenderForm

burice wrote

yap,
but as I said before, the connection just let the local packets and requests pass, n I have no access to internet.

I have also been ripping my hair out.
I have a Draytek 2710vn as my main router, using a TD-VG3631 as a Wireless bridge for entertainment equipment.....yeah,yeah, mixed vendor equipment...I know, I know.
But, everything was fine. Then after a few days, my TV could not access internet content anymore
Hooked up to the VG3631 WLAN, nothing. had access to all bridged LAN and WLAN devices, but no response to def Gway or Internet
Hooked up to the VG3631 LAN (same as TV), nothing. Same as above.
Rebooted the VG3631, nothing.
Rebooted 2710vn, nothing.
Unplugged the power to the VG3631. Rebooted 2710vn again. Then plugged power back into VG3631 again.
It's working again (same configuration I had working before anything went wrong) .....wtf ?!?!?

I'm happy it's working again, but I don't understand what/why/how ?

I had read somewhere (lost the reference now) that the bridging mode only enables the LAN ports on the bridge device. ie only the LAN ports can access the WAN via the bridge.... so trying to access the WLAN of the bridge device to conduct diagnostics, or use as a secondary AP elsewhere in the house, is pretty much a lost cause.
Don't know if there's any truth to that or not, but that is certainly the behaviour I am observing at my place..... only the LAN ports can access bridged WAN. Connecting to the WLAN only gets me access to the LAN, Def G'way is off-limits.
Also read that initialisation of things like WDS were important .... hence my shut everything down and bring back up in an orderly fashion approach.

Anyway, it's working for what I need it to do, so I'm content (fingers crossed)
Hope this info somehow helps someone else out there.

i have 2 tp link routers 

1. 150Mbps Wireless N Router TL-WR740N ver - 6.0 (main router - have internet acces via optical fiber ont)

2. 300Mbps Wireless N USB ADSL2+ Modem Router TD-W8968 ver-4.0 (secondary router)

 

i have setup WDS bridge  and have access to both wifi admin login page from both routers. 

Main router shows wds status as run but there is no internet access from secondary router.

 

i have disabled dhcp server on secondary router and both the routers are in same subnetwork ip.

i want to use my secondary router as wireless wifi repeater.

Please help.

Same thing here.

I have an older TR-WR841 and a newer TL-MR6400. Only the old one has WDS bridging as options, but it connects to the new one and local traffic works wirelessly between the two.

The only issue is if devices are connected to the new one, but the WAN internet comes from old one, then those devices don't work on the internet, but they do locally. I haven't tested the reverse but I suspect it would be the same.

In my conf, I used to have WAN and devices on the new router, as well as DHCP, and use my old router with WDS capability to link my desktop to then new one wirelessly, and implicitly to the internet. Used to work fine  but due to some technical issues my ISP tech said I had to switch it up. Now WAN comes from the old router, PC is on it via cable, devices are still on the new router. They have internet as long as I link the two routers with a cable, but through WDS bridging, nothing.

Really strange, it's like WDS somehow filters gateway calls but not direct IP calls. So from my phone I can access the cp of the old router, but not its gateway address for internet pass through.