another "bricked" router post

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Hi,

I have a RB4011iGS+5HacQ2HnD that is about 2 years old now. I upgrades ROS to v7.6 back when I first got it and did have to “recover” it back then also. Details are alittle fuzzy, but I am pretty sure I reset to default config and retried the update and it worked the 2nd time around. I tried this time to upgrade from v7.6 to v7.12.2 (using the Package tab) and it hasn’t come back alive at all, even when trying various reset options. Just to be clear, when I power on the router ONLY the blue PWR led comes on. maybe once out of 10-20 power cycles with trying to reset it, will the SFP+ green LED will turn on/flash.

First the reset button on the router is a bit of a struggle. Holding it before power or after power doesn’t always guarantee I can get it to reset. am I the lucky recipient of a faulty reset or is that a common experience?

Next, I have tried to reset it to factory default to no avail. Also tried reset into the backup bootloader (green light on after holding reset before power. keeped it pressed about 2s). Lastly, I am on 12-ish netinstall attempts now. I have tried the various tips/tricks for netinstall, but I never had any issues with netinstall finding the router (when I get it to reset into etherboot) OR with it throwing any errors. All of the netinstall attempts seem to work, but afterwards the router never comes up. I have wiresharked the netinstall, but I am not seeing anything that would indicate an error/issue. Included a SS of the last few packets before its done.
ws-netinstall.png
I also grabbed a USB to RJ45, which I checked the pin out with the docs, in the hopes I could get a peek at anything from there to help, but it seems to not connect. I never really mucked with it before, so I am not sure if I needed to enable it before the update or what. From reading the docs/help/troubleshooting, it should work for the bootloader at least, no? I am using Putty and have confirmed the settings match the docs (115200 baud, 8 data, 1 stop, no parity, no flow control). As a sanity, also tried hyperterminal

I am feeling pretty frustrated and not sure what to do at this point. I did open a support ticket, but have a feeling they are going to ask me to retry the things I have been doing already. Would appreciate some advice on what I could be doing wrong or what else to try.

2

Will go ahead and answer my post since I did recover the router last night. Basically I had a corrupt bootloader. How I figured it out was I started from scratch on everything, and while checking the console cable, I found that it required two drivers and one of those was not setup (it adds two separate com ports, one of those was not there and required FTDI driver). Once I updated its drivers, the other com port showed up and then I was able to see the bootloader messages. After that its the typical setup/fixes. I am not sure how the bootloader was corrupted, but was able to fix it by running the boot loader update command after using the backup to start.

3

Hi, I’m very glad you solved the problem, but I and the forum would be so much happier
if you also mark your case in this forum as solved.

See the pictures below.
Where you click on the following places on the thread that solved your problem.

So the AI can take over and know what the problems are with the respective solution.

At board style: Canvas

At board style: prosilver