Corrupt boot loader RB493G

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

I have an RB493G which I upgraded to RouterOS 5.8 tonight from 4.16 or 4.17. The first one went good, this one had to be power cycled.

It came up and looked good. So I upgraded the firmware to 2.37. That went worse than the OS upgrade.

It will no longer output anything on the serial console when trying to boot.

If I hit the secondary bootloader button, it will boot on power up. Then the OS works fine.

I tried to flash the firmware again.

firmware upgraded successfully, please reboot for changes to take effect!

On reboot, there was no text on serial console after “shutting down”.

I have to use the secondary boot loader again.

I downgraded the OS back to 4.17, had to use the secondary boot
loader. Tried to “upgrade” the bootloader to 2.29.

firmware upgraded successfully, please reboot for changes to take effect!

Nothing. Had to use the secondary bootloader again.

I’ve tried it a dozen times now. It always says “upgraded successfully”. It always fails to load the primary bootloader.

In desperation I tried

/system routerboard settings set force-backup-booter=no

as suggested in http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/problem-upgrading-bootloader/50186/1 with the same results.

Any idea what else I can try? Is it time to send it back?

> /system routerboard settings print
            baud-rate: 115200
           boot-delay: 5s
          boot-device: nand-if-fail-then-ethernet
       enter-setup-on: any-key
        cpu-frequency: (unknown)
        boot-protocol: bootp
  enable-jumper-reset: yes
  force-backup-booter: no
          silent-boot: yes

Aha! I set the cpu-frequency to 680MHz and tried the

/system routerboard upgrade

again. It booted!!! I’ll go ahead and post this just in case it helps MikroTik or someone else using the 493G.

BTW, the other RB493G, brand new, which I upgraded last night was running 4.14. I didn’t pay enough attention to the firmware version prior to upgrade. At some point I noticed it had the cpu-frequency set to 100MHz. Perhaps checking the routerboard settings before a firmware upgrade is in order?

ROS 5.8 on rb4.xx problem!
2

I’ve read other reports on the cpufreq changing to 100 by itself. No known cause for it that I know of.

3

Hi,

ROS V5.8 which was released recently has the following in the change log -

routerboard - fix RB400/RB700 bootloader upgrade problem.

Have yet to try this version but maybe it might help you out.

Rgds,
Mark.

4

You obviously didn’t read the very first sentence of his post.

5

Hi,

Too right :confused: . I was hoping that 5.8 was a ‘silver bullet’ and symptoms are exactly like what I have when upgraded to 4.17.

Jumped the gun there and thank you for pointing it out.

Rgds,
Mark.

6

I suspect something in the firmware before 2.37 didn’t care what was in the cpufreq field and we just didn’t see any issue with whatever garbage got written there. 2.28 certainly boots with the cpufreq setting “unknown”. I suspect 2.37 finally cares.

print-cpufreq: 
        @for i in ${MTIKS}; do \
                echo -n "$$i: "; \
                ssh $$i "/system routerboard settings print" | grep cpu || true; \
        done;

I went through and added RB model to each line output manually. They run variously 4.16, 4.17, 5.2, 5.3, 5.5, or 5.7. gw1.mays is the only one in production using 5.8 at the moment.

gw1.mar:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz    RB450G
gw1.kbcn:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB450G
gw1.myr:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz    RB750G
gw1.mays:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G (was 100MHz, this is the replacement)
gw1.bb:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.egl:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB450G
newgw1.gf:         cpu-frequency: (unknown)   RB493G  
gw1.mpt:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB450G
gw1.hs:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB450G
gw1.ps:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB450G
gw1.arva:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.bkwl:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz  RB450G
fw1.col:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB450G
gw1.clrw:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.dam:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.gvh:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.hays:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB450G
gw1.kntz:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB750G
gw1.mflr:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.mor:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.oplo:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB450G
gw1.plm:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.shlo:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.tang:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.tgrv:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.thnb:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G
gw1.wwlp:         cpu-frequency: 680MHz   RB493G

Regarding newkffb.gf, it has refused to upgrade the firmware to 2.29 since it was installed, luckily, it never refused to boot.

[lambert@newgw1.gf] > /system routerboard settings print
            baud-rate: 115200
           boot-delay: 5s
          boot-device: nand-if-fail-then-ethernet
       enter-setup-on: any-key
        cpu-frequency: (unknown)
        boot-protocol: bootp
  enable-jumper-reset: yes
          silent-boot: yes

[lambert@newgw1.gf] > /system routerboard print
       routerboard: yes
             model: "493G"
     serial-number: "25E00175E546"
  current-firmware: "2.28"
  upgrade-firmware: "2.29"

[lambert@newgw1.gf] > /system resource print
                   uptime: 14w2d23h54m10s
                  version: "4.17"
              free-memory: 231304kB
             total-memory: 257348kB
                      cpu: "MIPS 24K V7.4"
                cpu-count: 1
            cpu-frequency: 680MHz
                 cpu-load: 3
           free-hdd-space: 85268kB
          total-hdd-space: 126976kB
  write-sect-since-reboot: 3875941
         write-sect-total: 3935696
               bad-blocks: 0.6%
        architecture-name: "mipsbe"
               board-name: "RB493G"
                 platform: "MikroTik"

Maybe the fix in 2.37, or RouterOS 5.8, is to actually install the firmware no matter what the cpu-frequency is?

All of the 4xx series devices were purchased in the last 10 months. The 750Gs were purchased in the last 14 months. I’ve not been using MikroTiks for very long. Still learning new places to look for health and diagnostics.

7

Hi …

Routerboard 5.8 package came with 2.37 but today I saw 2.38 fwf avialable for downlowad at routerboard.com.

But did not found any “changelog” for it.

Regards;

8

5.9 has the 2.38 firmware. There are almost never public changelogs for firmwre, you have to contact support for them.

9

I see. I only downloaded from released versions page. Not too much room for testing. Afraid to upgraded this fwfs 'cause some moments ago I needed to use backup booter at a 411AR and no boot at all from it (2.29 I guess). So reset button while powering up bring the board back with the upgraded 2.37.

Regards;

10

what do you mean “never” ?? http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/RouterBOOT_changelog