Firmware Update Fails 2.20 (rOS 3.30) to 2.23 (rOS 4.4)

astounding · Thu Dec 31, 2009 3:53 am

I have several Routerboard 411s that were running 3.30 (with firmware 2.20) but were recently upgraded them to 4.4. Immediately thereafter I attempted to upgrade the firmware from 2.20 to 2.23 on each of these as well:

[admin@rb411] > /system routerboard print
       routerboard: yes
             model: "411"
     serial-number: "ABCDEF012345"
  current-firmware: "2.20"
  upgrade-firmware: "2.23"
[admin@rb411] > /system routerboard upgrade
Do you really want to upgrade firmware? [y/n]
y
firmware upgraded successfully, please reboot for changes to take effect!
[admin@rb4111] > /system reboot
Reboot, yes? [y/N]:
y
system will reboot shortly
Connection closed by foreign host.

The board reboots, comes back online, I connect and do "/system routerboard print" again and notice that "current-firmware" is still 2.20 and "upgrade-firmware" is still "2.23" -- there was NO CHANGE. I check the logs, and there's nothing useful there (it just shows my reboot).

I've currently got this problem with about seventeen RB411s (of more than a hundred that were updated). I've got another batch of upgrades to do tonight from 3.30 to 4.4 and worry that more of these may also exhibit the firmware upgrade failure problem.

Any ideas?

Aaron out.

astounding · Thu Dec 31, 2009 9:14 pm

Hmmm, it's worse now. I updated a batch of 90+ 411 boards from 3.3 to 4.4, then attempted to update firmware from 2.20 to 2.23 once 4.4 was running. Whereas before I had 17 boards that refused to update firmware, now I have a total (including the original 17) of 45 boards with the problem. (So not quite half of the 90+ that were updated last night refused to update firmware.)

Multiple tries, using telnet/SSH CLI, API, and WinBox all fail to update ANY of them.

This is very weird! I'll be sending a report to support@mikrotik.com about this one.

Any one else encountered this with RB411s updating from 3.30 (or any of the 3.x line) to 4.4?

Aaron out.

rmichael · Thu Dec 31, 2009 9:37 pm

hm...It is my understanding/assumption that one should update firmware before upgrading ROS.

astounding · Thu Dec 31, 2009 9:56 pm

hm...It is my understanding/assumption that one should update firmware before upgrading ROS.

The 2.23 firmware is ONLY available as part of the 4.4 package, so you've gotta upgrade to that first before the "/system routerboard upgrade" command will even be enabled. (3.30 only contains firmware 2.20--at least for the mipsbe architecture RB411 boards I've been working with.)

Aaron out.

rmichael · Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:21 pm

You are right. Thanks for the info.

astounding · Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:49 pm

Anyone know if there's a direct download link anywhere for a Routerboard 411 for the 2.23 boot loader firmware? The only file on www.routerboard.com was ar7100-2.20.fwf (version 2.20), the older version. I was hoping to try a direct boot loader upgrade using "ar7100-2.23.fwf" if such a file existed (2.23) to see if that bypassed the odd upgrade bug I've seen on nearly half the RB411s I've upgraded to 4.4.

Link anyone?

Aaron out.

rmichael · Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:16 am

The 2.23 firmware is ONLY available as part of the 4.4 package

2.23 is also available from version 4.2 - maybe it will work better for you to upgrade to ROS4.2, upgrade fw to fw 2.23 than upgrade to ROS4.4. Anyway maybe it's worth to wait for 4.5 - Normis mentioned it could be out by Friday...

astounding · Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:50 pm

As another data item:

I took one of the RB411s that refuses to update firmware from 2.20 to 2.23 under 4.4 and installed 4.5 this morning. Then I performed the usual upgrade sequence:

[admin@rb411] > /system routerboard print
       routerboard: yes
             model: "411"
     serial-number: "0123456789AB"
  current-firmware: "2.20"
  upgrade-firmware: "2.23"
[admin@rb411] > /system routerboard upgrade
Do you really want to upgrade firmware? [y/n]
y
firmware upgraded successfully, please reboot for changes to take effect!
[admin@rb411] > /system reboot
Reboot, yes? [y/N]:
y
system will reboot shortly

Then once the device was back up:

[admin@rb411] > /system routerboard print
       routerboard: yes
             model: "411"
     serial-number: "0123456789AB"
  current-firmware: "2.20"
  upgrade-firmware: "2.23"
[admin@rb411] >

So it appears that in the case where the firmware/boot loader is failing to update under RouterOS 4.4, it continues to do so under RouterOS 4.5.

Disappointed,
Aaron out.

Thu Jan 14, 2010 10:37 am

We just updated routerboard.com with the latest available firmwares for all routerboards. note that if one routerboard has 2.24 it doesn't mean that the other routerboards will also have the same version. the versions are different per routerboard model.

astounding · Thu Jan 14, 2010 8:54 pm

Thanks for updating the firmware at routerboard.com.

Unfortunately, I'm still having no luck upgrading from RB411 firmware 2.20 to 2.23. Here's what I tried this moring:

I downgraded RouterOS on RB411 device from 4.4 to 3.30 (so that the 2.23 firmware would NOT be available via the RouterOS installation)
Following a reboot (and the device booting under 3.30), I uploaded the 2.23 firmware image for the RB411: ar7100-2.23.fwf
Once uploaded, 2.23 once again was available for upgrade in the /system routerboard submenu, so I issued the command: /system routerboard upgrade
After answering "y" (yes) to the upgrade prompt, I then rebooted the device as instructed by the upgrade command.

Sadly, upon reboot, still running 3.30, the RB411 device had the same problem: The currently installed firmware was still 2.20, and 2.23 was still available for upgrade (but impossible apparently to actually achieve).

I'm welcome to other suggestions. Please be aware, however, that all of the 48 RB411 devices that have failed to upgrade to firmware 2.23 are deployed in the field and only reachable remotely (no easy physical access, short of driving to each individual customer location and climbing on the roof to access the device). And thanks in advance for all suggestions!

Frustrated,
Aaron out.

astounding · Thu Jan 14, 2010 9:12 pm

Now this is interesting...

On the same RB411 device running RouterOS 3.30 with ar7100-2.23.fwf uploaded, I decided to issue the firmware update command but wait a while before rebooting. Here's what I did:

[admin@rb411] > /file print
 # NAME                                                 TYPE                                                SIZE                 CREATION-TIME
 0 ar7100-2.23.fwf                                      .fwf file                                           40136                jan/14/2010 11:43:52
 1 ABC1-XYZ.key                                         .key file                                           203                  dec/31/2009 16:14:52
[admin@rb411] > /system routerboard print
       routerboard: yes
             model: "411"
     serial-number: "1234567890AB"
  current-firmware: "2.20"
  upgrade-firmware: "2.23"
[admin@rb411] > /system routerboard upgrade
Do you really want to upgrade firmware? [y/n]
y
firmware upgraded successfully, please reboot for changes to take effect!
[admin@rb411] > /system routerboard print
       routerboard: yes
             model: "411"
     serial-number: "1234567890AB"
  current-firmware: "2.23"
  upgrade-firmware: "2.23"
[admin@rb411] >

I then kept my session open, did NOT reboot the device, but just waited for 3 to 3 1/2 minutes, then did this:

[admin@rb411] > /system routerboard print
       routerboard: yes
             model: "411"
     serial-number: "1234567890AB"
  current-firmware: "2.20"
  upgrade-firmware: "2.23"
[admin@rb411] >

I tried it again, issuing the upgrade command, then doing /system routerboard print repeatedly afterward. For the first 3 min. or so, the print output always showed current-firmware: "2.23", but around 3 to 3 1/2 minutes later, suddenly and without warning, the current-firmware reverted to "2.20" again.

Could this be related to whatever the problem is that's causing the firmware update to fail on reboot too?

Puzzled,
Aaron out.

Fri Jan 15, 2010 10:33 am

we will check this

astounding · Mon May 17, 2010 9:26 pm

It looks like the RouterOS RB411 devices that previously would not upgrade firmware from 2.20 to 2.23 when upgraded to RouterOS 4.4 continue to fail to accept new firmware with RouterOS 4.9 (and firmware 2.26). Symptoms are the same. Behavior identical. All attempts to upgrade the firmware fail, though NONE of the commands reports an error (they all appear to work, but upon reboot, the firmware is still 2.20).

If I can get one of these problem devices back from the field (they work just fine otherwise), I can possibly set up remote access for someone at MikroTik.

While this is not a major problem, it does cause me to worry about the reliability of these RB411 boards.

Aaron out.

ditonet · Mon May 17, 2010 11:07 pm

Hi,

I had same issue, look at this:
http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41102
Finally solution was quiet simple:
/system routerboard settings
set force-backup-booter=no
/system routerboard upgrade
/system reboot

Regards, Grzegorz.

astounding · Wed May 19, 2010 10:07 pm

Thanks, ditonet, for pointing me to the other thread. That appeared to work on one of these stubborn RB411 boxes. I'll try it on the other 40+ late tonight in bulk.

Aaron out.

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