I'm having a bit of an issue with my wAP AX devices. I have 4 of them.
If I want to do an upgrade (software, not firmware), unless i reboot them first, there is always at least of them that fails to boot and must be recovered via netinstall.
I am doing the upgrades via the GUI (web interface or winbox). I always use the "download and install" option. What i have noticed is that, after selecting the "download and install" option, the system first downloads the package then reboots to perform the install. Generally the download option is very fast (a few seconds). But, if the download progresses very slow, so instead of 5 seconds it needs 10-15 seconds, that device will fail to boot after the upgrade.
If, on the other hand I reboot all devices prior to attempting the upgrade, then download is always fast for all of them and all resume just fine.
As i said, I have 4 wAP AXs. And i've got this issue on 3 of them at some point in time.
I have other devices (cAP AXs, RB5009, hAP AX, hAP AC, PBPro etc) and none experience this behavior.
I have bought one relatively recently, and i upgraded it to 7.23 stable once it was released and i done it through health -> packages -> routerOs -> check for updates -> install.
It upgraded without issues, i did firmware after it and it done it without any problems
Are you trying to upgrade to 7.24.1?
Because i can try that out if you want and let you know. As i said i personally haven't had an issue with them, mine are powered via poe-in from rb5009upr.
1 from a PoE passive injector (RBGPoe) and the included power adapter
I have upgraded them to 7.34.1.
The problem is not the actual software version. I've had this issue several times in the past on 3 of them.
It's as if something is bloating (like a memory leak or similar) which gets cleared after a reboot.
The devices are working as expected, so no complaints here. It's just the upgrade part that "bricks" them unless i do the reboot.
I had this issue since 7.21 and I installed every single version since. Unless I reboot, there is always at least one that will fail.
When the first one experienced this issue, i've used netinstall to bring it back to life and thought nothing about it further. But then at the next update another one failed. Same behavior. And the next update 2 of them failed. And it's been happening ever since.
Again, only on wAP AX and if I reboot before the upgrade all is well.
There have been reports of people experiencing slowdowns/interruptions when downloading the updated RouterOS, maybe you could instead download the new version, upload the file to the WAP AX(s) and install from local, the WAP AX has plenty of storage at 128 MB.
This would remove the "over the internet" possible issues.
Exactly! Only one of them has never experienced the issue. But the other 3 have all experienced this. It's not always the same one. It always at least one which fails but never more than 2.
It is an apparent random issue, but it's strange this happens only on wAP AXs and not the other APs.
3 of them are in one site and the fourth is in another.
Quite surprising, the one which never failed is the one which sits outside on a pole and has seen its fair share of weather extremes.
And I've bough them from different suppliers over the course of a few months, they have different minimum fw versions, so i expect them to be different batches.
It looks more like a leak of some sort, which, unless cleared before the upgrade, will not allow the process to complete.
Later edit: there are no errors or warnings in the logs. The only clue that a wAP AX is going to fail is that it takes more time to download the package. It the download speed is normal, then all is well. But if it is slow, then 100% it will fail. That i know for sure and have experienced many times.
Realistically the behavior makes no sense, and the AP is working just fine. It just fails to update and can only be recovered via netinstall.
That's erratic behaviour, i had my updates stop because for some reason the download of the packages failed (what do i know ISP went down or mikrotik update server had a hiccup, can be anything) had them stop the updating/have me restart it, but it never made me have to reinstall the device because of the update process.
I would say consolidate the reasons and conditions under which the problem happens and try sending a support ticket, see what they have to offer, they are probably gonna look for supout and a few followup questions.
@bogdano i connected my wap ax to the rb5009upr, packages -> download and upgrade -> rebooted -> new package versions, no issues.
RouterBOOT same thing.
I then tried doing the same thing with files in my rb5009, put it in capsman mode, ran the same thing, it upgraded with only rebooting once (i had to login into it to upgrade the RouterBOOT)...
Not saying its not happening its just a weird issue you have.
So, it's good at least that is not a more general issue.
Mine are all working as APs and managed by CAPsMAN. Besides being managed by CAPsMAN and having a bunch of VLANs and the corresponding wifi config to have different SSIDs based on VLANs, there's nothing special. Traffic processing is on CAPs. With them there are other cAP AXs with the same role and config and they have absolutely no issue.
Since this happened with different software packages, i also do not think it's a specific package.
I will check before the next update to see how resources look. I realize now that i should have done that already.
My money is on a leak somewhere, else this would not work after the reboot.
I finally figured this out. It's the NAND. One device finally gave up the ghost yesterday.
I wanted to upgrade to 7.24.2. I did a reboot as usual before. After that I wanted to to a backup (save to disk) but that seemed to take too long. I've looked at system --> resources and saw that the bad blocks counter was very high (13.4%). I started the download and that apparently "fixed" it for good. It crashed mid-download. I tried to bring it back using netinstall, it seemed to work, but then crashed again.
I've looked at the other 2 that both have bad blocks over 10%. The other devices have between 0.0% (most of them) to 0.4% (one hAP AX3).
So, it's just my bad luck.
They are going back to the sellers because they are still under warranty. This is the first time I have any hardware issues with any Mikrotik, but, as they say, it's a first for everything.
It's 3 ouf of 4, but still... too many have this issue.
I bought them from 2 separate vendors, over the course of 2-3 months.
So either:
this is an amazing bad luck/coincidence
they are all part of a fault lot
they are poorly designed
The strange thing is that the one which always worked is the one sitting outside on a pole. If this would have failed I would not have though too much of it. The general weatherproof design of the wAP AX does not look very good. There are no rubber seals, no grommets around the holes for passing though ethernet cables, etc. But it seems to do its job.
The wAPs that failed are all indoor, mounted on walls. It's a house, so temperature and humidity are rather constant. Maybe a cooling issue? I've no idea to be honest.
I have prepared them to be shipped to the suppliers. I'll wait to see what happens.