I bought MikroTik e50ug (hEX refresh) for home use and ran into this problem right after updating the software. Everything was fine up until I accessed RouterOS first time and followed manual’s instruction to “Click the "Check for updates" button and update RouterOS to the latest version”. From that point I could not access the router anymore because I got this error: “Authentication failed: invalid username or password”. I get same error in both browser and WinBox. I have tried “admin” with blank password and using the password on the sticker behind. The latter was working before the update. Also, the problem is not related to ambiguous characters in the password. I also tried factory resetting the router and updating it again, but ran into same problem again.
So how do I fix this? I’m new to MikroTik products and anything other than basic consumer routers, so I have to admit this is not the best customer experience with this brand.
I made it a rigorous habit to take a picture of each and every device passwd passing by my hands since they started with that random passwd procedure so I can use x3 zoom. Helps a lot.
I also have Hex Refresh at home and from the first looks of it, they did try to avoid possible ambiguous characters this time (I've seen it differently in the past for other devices).
But are you 200% sure ?
0/O (zero, uppercase O)
I/l (Uppercase i, lowercase L)
things like that ... been there, done that, seen it already ...
Other then trying all combo's, I assume your latest ROS version went to 7.20.4 ?
And that might possibly also be part of the issue...
When you say you tried factory reset, where you able to get in at that point ? It's not really clear from your problem description.
Maybe time to learn to do netinstall and use 7.20.2 or 7.19.4 (7.19.6 is also suspicious for some).
I agree it's not the best first encounter you're having here.
If I get your report right, once you performed the reset you were able to access the router again (this should happen with "admin" and the password on the sticker) and then you attempted again the update to latest.
If this is the case, reset again BUT DO NOT attempt updating to latest.
Once (if) you have access, do not change anything, and perform an upgrade (or possibly a downgrade) to an older (but surely working) release, as holvoeth suggested 7.19.4 is a good candidate.
You don't specify this, but likely you attempted accessing the device via Webfig (the interface accessible from a browser).
In this particular release (7.20.4) the Webfig has been reported to be flaky, so use instead (if you run Windows) the dedicated Mikrotik tool, Winbox 3.x (if you are running Linux or MacOS, you can use Winbox 4.x, which - while still not fully finalized - is anyway much better than Webfig) read this:
access the router in Winbox open system packages and drag and drop the file to it, this video - even if related to an older version - is still valid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPZZZfYzGOI
perform the downgrade either pressing the downgrade button or opening a terminal and running in it /system package downgrade
Ok, I did ROS config reset by short pressing the reset and was able to login and update manually using WinBox.
So this is what I think happened:
When I hit the update button (that was actually around one month ago), ROS version was updated to 7.19.6 (That "suspicious" version mentioned by holvoetn)
That's when I could not access the router anymore with any password I could figure out
Resetting (short or long press, I don't remember) restored the default credentials allowing to login again. ROS version probably stayed the same 7.19.6.
Updating again at this point only broke credentials again and didn't change the version anymore
Now month later, new versions are available so I didn't want to downgrade. Instead, I downloaded and installed 7.20.2 with your help. Now everything seems to work fine. Thanks for the help @holvoetn and @jaclaz!
