Very strange. One of my mAP lite, it was connected by ethernet and USB-powered directly by a Lexmark laserprinter, died. The printer was turned off for at least one month. Today I turned the printer on, the map successfully registered at wifi. It worked for 3 pages to print. Then it was gone.
First symptom: after applying power 3 leds turned solid green and won't go off: pwr, ap,eth
By holding reset button and re-applying power it went over in the next state. After power-on only pwr led was solid. No other change in led.
I then detached the map from the printer and went to my PC for netinstall. I managed to netinstall it once. Netinstall CLI said it successfully finished and would reboot. But it never came up again. In 99 out of 100 time I attach the USB power, it ends up in the "solid pwr led" state. Sometimes I mange to get blinking LEDs and a link on eth1. But WinBox does not even see the device, so not even a mac connection can be established. Holding the reset button before applying power, after, etc. - it does not matter. It is basically not responding to anything.
I have tried 3 different ethernet cables, differnt usb cables, different power supplies. Nothing changed.
I don't know what to do else. Any ideas? Thanks for reading
Netinstall again?
I had something similar quite some time ago, also with map lite, no way to revive it.
Except for netinstall.... but it took several attempts.
Other then that... for the cost of that device, there is a limit to what you can do for it. At some point you have to let it go.
I tried the last 2 hours. Impossible to get it recognized by Netinstall anymore. It seems to be a brick.
Just placed the order and should be delivered tomorrow.
Still, I'd like to recover the "old one". Maybe there is a trick, combination of reset pushes, etc. I am not ready to accept that this device died today - out of the sudden. Where is the immortal backup bootloader? Is this all a fairytale?
Left the device unplugged over night. Thought I'd try Netinstall one last time, and this time it even started up.
Version: 7.23.2(2026-07-03 09:37:52)
Will reset to default config
Using interface enp0s20f0u1
Using interface enp0s20f0u1
Waiting for Link-UP on enp0s20f0u1
Waiting for RouterBOARD...
Assigned 192.168.88.1 to 2C:C8:1B:xx:xx:xx
Booting device 2C:C8:1B:xx:xx:xx into setup mode
But then it was stuck. Waited for 5min. But it did not continue. Then I unplugged the map, replugged and again the old story: only the PWR led lights up. Dead again.
Yep, but there are:
electrolytic caps (prone to failure, particularly if they are over heated)
ceramic caps (low capacity, only rarely fail)
tantalum caps (high capacity, replacement for electrolytic, also usually not failing often)
On the board I cannot see any electrolytic capacitor.
The ceramic ones are less likely to be an issue.
The biggish black square one with two terminals between the RJ45 and the processor might be a tantalum one, of the kind seen here: https://jlcpcb.com/blog/read-smd-capacitor-code
on the left:
I still have a mAP lite somewhere on my shelves. This piece was always very temperamental and never reliable. Its the only hardware from MikroTik I own and used, which is simply very bad.
Had always similar issues like you have, regardless if I used USB oder PoE. If it worked, well at maximum after some handful of months it had a hiccup again. Then I had to invest too much time to get it runnig again.
Stupidly I bought this mAP lite from a store which had non existent service and isn't even existing anymore. Otherwise, I would have insisted on an exchange.
For a scenario like yours a Nano Router (AP) from some customer grade manufactor should be sufficient, is installed in a fraction of time and then working reliably.
