I have been using my RB951G-2HnD for 2 years and never had any issues. It was set up by an ex colleague who is an IT guy by profession and since then I have only been doing one thing: log in with Winbox and update the router.
Current version: 6.28
Routerboard firmware: 3.22
It was set up that I have 2 wifis, one is behind a VPN service and the other goes “straight out”. There is a Synology NAS behind the router and other than that, just regular wifi devices (3 phones, 1 ipad, etc). So I would not thing it’s overloaded.
The following started happening about 3-4 weeks ago. Regardless whether I am using the wifi behind a VPN or the regular wifi, it would just stall, stop responding and sometime even the wifi signal gets dropped on all devices. Then about a minute later it would come back work again for a while. It all seems random, I have not been able to recognize a pattern when this problem occurs. When it “stalls” I cannot access it either via Winbox or through it’s local IP address, it just would not load. Rebooting in such cases definitely helps straight off, the question is how long it takes before the problem reoccurs.
I am not a pro and this router is a little bit beyond my IT knowledge so please bear with me
Any ideas what could be causing this? I am happy to share any log files or details of my setup, just tell me how I can get it out of the router.
Thanks. I am afraid to reset it to default. Once I did a backup and I thought that backup would save ALL the settings but when I restored the router from the backup this was a year ago, way before these connection problems started occuring) I had to realize that several settings were not restored.
I actually do have another router of the same kind but for the same reason, I can’t try that. That lost setting that I by myself was not able to re-do - am not an IT expert.
That is what I just did. Reset my second router, updated the packages and routerboard firmware and then used the backup file from my first router and restored it.
Result: After the router reboots followin the restoring request, there is no wifi signal coming out of the router. Before restoring, there is. I have repeated this twice to make sure it was not a mistake.
They are the exact same router models, no difference whatsoever.
Any idea why I cannot transfer the backup from one to the other?
By copying InoX refers to open a terminal in “source” router, typing export (that will generate all the CLI commands needed for a blank router to replicate that configuration), then go to the “destination” router (whose configuration should be “blank”: I assume a reset configuration with no defaults), open a Terminal and paste those comands in it.
Backups are reliable only for the machine they are generated from, with the same RouterOS version. Exports are machine and (mostly) RouterOs version “neutral”.
Thanks for pointing that out! I have never used the terminal. Now using Winbox I opened the terminal on the source router, typed in export. That resulted by a lot of text going up the screen, then I got the command prompt back.
Now, I need reset the destination router (which now has the same firmware version) then start, login with Winbox and then what do I type exaclty? Or what settings do I copy/paste into it?
On the “destination router” first perform a reset with no defaults, in Winbox: System > Reset configuration and tick “no default configuration”. You’ll need to reboot.
Once you connect again, open a new terminal and paste the export from the source router directly into terminal, watch out for any errors though being both the same version there should be none.
Great, thanks, will try that. Just to clarify, on the source router I got a lot of the following type of text. Of course there’s a lot more than this but do I copy ALL of this and just paste it in the terminal on the destination router as is?
I have done everything as you said, I reset the destination router without factory defaults (using Winbox) and the result was strangely the same as the original issue: after rebooting following the reset there was no wifi signal coming out of it. I could not connect to it via a LAN cable either (was just stuck at the “identifying” bit).
Then I did a hard reset (using a pin at the back, etc) then copy pasted the export results from the source router into the destination router and then it rebooted and first it seemed all OK. But then I saw that the several things such as the Firewall rules were not transferred.
Any idea why the Reset without factory defaults results in the router becoming inaccessible even via LAN? My LAN card was set to Auto IP so that shouldn’t be the reason.
Thanks so much for taking the time to help me through this. It is much appreciated.
When you reset the router with no defaults that means no configuration at all, (wlan disabled, no ips), you cannot connect to it by IP, you should use Winbox3, look at the neighbors tab and you’ll see it appear with a mac address and IP 0.0.0.0, double click on the mac and you will connect to it.
Then you should apply the export file from the source router, those commands expect a “blank” router. If there’s any configuration already set, it will be added “on top” of the already existing configuration, so for sure you’ll have unexpected results.
I managed to connect to it using through the neighbor tab. Then when copying the results of the Export function generated by the source router, it resulted in all sorts of of syntax error messages. Not sure why. I even tried removing the beginning (Mikrotek logo and all) and only copy the results after the “export” command. Same results.
The routers are identical, same routerboard firmware, same package versions.
I assume you reset it with no defaults again prior to pasting the commands.
Did you copy from one winbox terminal and paste into the other? Or pasted the text to a file? If you did the latter, try using wordpad (not notepad) as it could be a CR/LF issue.
Yes, I did reset via Winbox ticking the without default field.
You were right, pasting into Notepad was the problem. Using Wordpad instead seems to have got me a step closer.
Now, there were no syntax errors, it started processing things after I pasted it. However, after a few seconds it stopped for a fraction of a second and Winbox closed without any warnings.
Following that it seemed to have set up the wifi signals but I could not properly connect, it got stuck at “Limited access..” Tried LAN, still had no access. I tried to re-do the whole thing all over again and managed to take a screenshot right before Winbox “crashed” or closed:
Ok so an error is preventing the complete .rsc to load.
Try this:
1.- Connect to Source router via winbox.
2.- Export rsc file (in new terminal, /export file=SourceRouter.rsc)
3.- Still on source router, go to Files, then drag and drop SourceRouter.rsc to your desktop
4.- Connect to Destination router, System>reset configuration, no defaults ticked.
5.- Connect again to the destination router via Winbox neighbor tab
6.- Go to Files, then Transfer the SourceRouter.rsc file to the router (drag and drop from your desktop)
7.- open New terminal, then issue
