I squared away a MAPLite and wanted to clone it instead of starting from scratch on the second unit. I used winbox to back up the config and download it.

If I upload and restore the file to another MAPLite, the SSID isnt being broadcast, and I cannot connect to either interface via MAC in Winbox. Its effectively dead/invisible until I factory reset it.

I can restore the backup to the actual hardware unit it came from and it restores fine. I wasnt paying attention and deleted an IP accidentally from my source AP so I had to test the restore function and it worked fine for the original hardware.

So can you not restore a backup to a new unit of the same model/firmware? (e.g. original unit burns out and it gets replaced with an identical unit)

How can you backup a config and restore it to a new unit if the GUI backup/restore doesnt work?

Do /export instead. Backup is only intended for the same device running the same ROS version. Newer versions of the same devices might have slightly different hardware.

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:C ... Management

Complementing the above response follows the command example to run on new terminal.
You can copy the backup to your computer and edit it with a text editor