Hi,
My HAP ac2 running on 7.13 is about to run out of space. Is Mikrotik aware of that? Maybe it would be a good idea to exclude ppp and routing from the main package bundle?
This was discovered long ago (as soon as 7.13 came out). I certainly hope MT reads the comments in release topic they created themselves … and I hope will do something about it.
Beware that when space runs out, you won’t be able to change configuration. And device might become unstable (rebooting for no actual reason). Or anything else.
It seems that the hAP ac2 is the most affected by this problem.
Maybe part of the issue is that the flash isn’t 16MB to start with, it is only 15.3MB on that device.
(no idea why, it could be due to limitations of the processor, memory-mapped IO, boot code, whatever)
OF COURSE MikroTik know about this! But they are in a state of denial.
I have written my concerns about 16MB flash devices many times, but the only reply you can get is
like “we make sure it fits, we test every release with default config and it always is OK” etc.
The 7.13 version makes it worse because now the “old” wireless config has been made a separate package while
the “new” code is still a mandatory part of the main package. So now you have 2 config menus, one for
the old and one for the new, again taking up more space. Which already was nearly 0 in 7.12 and below.
Still, for those that have a hAP ac2 and do not want to migrate to the new WiFi, I would recommend staying
at 7.12.1 and not upgrade until that becomes absolutely necessary.
Is a downgrade possible from 7.13 to 7.12.1?
I think it’s the matter of Mebi vs Mega. 16*106 Bytes=15.258789 MiB.
The thing is that storage producers use MB and MiB interchangable and don’t tell which is it. And MT is to blame here as it reports capacity using wrong unit as well.
It is possible. But you have to take extra care of uploading appropriate packages. Also beware that some settings you may have done in 7.13 won’t be backported to 7.12 (because config converter in 7.12 isn’t aware of certain new features, such as renaming /interface/wifiwave2 to /interface/wifi).
The last time it ran out of space it didn’t come up after the reboot. So one needs to be careful not to run out of space because it effectively bricks the device.
It isn’t. One does not even have to know what the exact unit is, just by looking at System->Resources in the field “Total HDD Size” it will show 16MB in almost all models but it shows 15.3MB in the hAP ac2.
So it does not matter if it is MiB or MB in reality, it is just less.
About downgrade: it depends on what kind of configuration you have.
When you are just using it as a basic home router with NAT and WiFi and no special config I would recommend to just do a netinstall without keeping configuration, and start completely fresh from defaults.
You can do a “/export show-sensitive file=filename” and download the filename.rsc file to your computer before doing that, and have the filename.rsc alongside in an editor while doing the new configuration (so you do not forget things).
If desired, you can also copy/paste some section of the export to your new setup, like a VPN setup or similar.
When the config is complicated, you could do a netinstall with “keep config” or you could download the 7.12.1 npk file and upload it to the router, and also in the packages section do a “remove” on the wireless or wlan package of 7.13, then click “downgrade”.
But the abovementioned netinstall and fresh start method will give you the most free space.
Would that not constitute as false advertising?
eg. “Routerboard that has 16MB Flash storage” when in reality it’s 15.2Mib.
D53G-5HacD2HnD is having the same issue - only 596 KiB reported free after upgrading to v7.13, total storage is 15.3MiB, on the MT’s Product page on website its showing MB
And I have written several times my concerns about integrating the wifi module into the default package. why they opted for this I can’t understand without insights into their architecture. extract the whole wifi part as extra package and all be good again.
Indeed!
Also I do not understand why they made everything one routeros package.
I can understand why they merged packages like security, dhcp, ppp and ipv6 from the v6 version in to the main package: there are just too many inter-dependencies between features all over the place and those specific packages.
But why “routing” (BGP/OSPF/etc), “hotspot”, and “mpls” were put in the routeros package, I do not understand.
Probably 95% of the users is never going to use those, now that they focused so much on home routers.
These should have remained optional packages…
@t0mm13b https://www.gbmb.org/mb-to-mib Afaik any storage device is advertised in MB/GB/TB sizes, not in MiB/GiB/TiB.
That is wrong. Internal memory is in MB but “external” storage like flash is always in MiB.
When you buy a “16MB flash card” it will be 16000000000 bytes, not 17179869184.
That would make it 14.9MB instead of 16MB.
However, that is all that is going on here. As mentioned, the hAP ac2 reports less space than all the other 16MB models.
Someone marked this topic as SOLVED although it’s NOT.
I think only the original poster (YOU) can mark it “solved”.
Anyway, did you try a netinstall to 7.12.1 ?
I haven’t tried netinstall option yet. I’m waiting for Mikrotik’s response on how they’re planning to address this problem. 7.14beta uses even more space than 7.13 so eventually, more and more users will be affected by this problem unless a sustainable solution is found.
Worst case scenario I will be forced to upgrade from ac2 to ax2. Maybe that’s what business people from Mikrotik want.
I do not expect that they will provide you with a useful reply or solution.
As I wrote before, concern has been expressed about decisions and about the ac2 and the only response is denial.
Maybe MikroTik can start a sort of exchange program where they offer minimum 50% discount to entice people to upgrade from ac2 to ax2 if they swap their hAP ac2 for ax2
…wishful thinking ! 
…or offer to purchase ROS compatible flash memory to replace it on board 