It didn’t want to upgrade from 6.47.x to 6.48, first complaining of lack of space.
I tried the free space fix npk.
I tried uploading the new system npk via ftp - although there was a bit more free space reported than the size of the file, it stopped at about 85%. Trying again with overwrite or resume lead to ‘unable to write’ errors.
I tried using netinstall on a Windows PC and Linux netbook. In both cases, only the router was connected to the PC and only the PC was connected to the port 1 on the router. I tried both holding the reset button down for ages while powering on and using the “/system routerboard settings set boot-device=try-ethernet-once-then-nand” terminal command.
With Windows, despite repeated attempts the router never appeared in the devices available area. (The IP address of the PC was changed per the docs.)
With Linux, the first try produced this:
twixt@3to20 ~/mikrotik $ ./netinstall-6.48/netinstall -a 192.168.0.1 routeros-smips-6.48.npk
connect: Network is unreachable
Using server IP: 0.0.0.0
Starting PXE server
Waiting for RouterBOARD...
bind bootp failed: Permission denied
bind tftp general failed: Permission denied
.. and stayed there until ^C stopped it.
The second try did it as root and did get interesting:
twixt@3to20 ~/mikrotik $ sudo ./netinstall-6.48/netinstall -a 192.168.0.1 routeros-smips-6.48.npk
connect: Network is unreachable
Using server IP: 0.0.0.0
Starting PXE server
Waiting for RouterBOARD...
PXE client: 6C:3B:6B:68:EC:AB
FAILED TO REPLY
PXE client: 6C:3B:6B:68:EC:AB
FAILED TO REPLY
(pair of lines repeated a few dozen times, then just..)
FAILED TO REPLY
.. until ^C.
That’s the right MAC address - does this mean it wasn’t really in Etherboot mode or is there some hardware problem with it?
Looking for updates in the router’s quick setup page was coming up with errors sounding like ‘write failure’…