I have been working with RouterOS for a very long time. I have done dozens and dozens of firmware upgrades as well as license upgrades. I am not a newbe at this, however, I am an old man so my brian is slowing down

Yes, I am using the mipsbe firmware. Yes, all three routers are licensed properly. Yes, I am putting the npk file into the file list location. Yes, the complete npk file is uploaded before I reboot. Yes, I have made a backup. I my fustration leeking out here, sorrrrry.

What gives with this issue, what am I missing that is so obvious?
I am I jumping to many version ahead?
Do I need get v5.13, v5.14 adn v5.15 installed first?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated - thank you.

Sounds like you are doing it right and you should be able to jump versions. I have a few 450s at the office and I can try to replicate on Monday.

Give netinstall a go, if they are easy enough to get to.

Have you tried separate packages (all_packages)?

(silly question) but how are you rebooting the router, a power cycle I have found will not work for an upgrade.

Make sure you /system reboot for the upgrade to take place.

When an upgrade fails for certain reasons (invalid/expired license, mismatched platform, corrupt NPK), there *will* be a reason for the failure logged to memory for your perusal after reboot. So...what does '/log print' show?

-- Nathan

I downgraded a 450G from 5.14 to 5.12 then upgraded to 5.16 without any problems.

(silly question) but how are you rebooting the router, a power cycle I have found will not work for an upgrade.

Make sure you /system reboot for the upgrade to take place.

Have you been pulling the plug or rebooting?

I thank all of you for taking the time to respond. To answer a couple of your question.
Yes, I used System/Reboot as I am not at the remote locations of those routers I cannot physical power cycle them.
Also, I could have sworn I looked at the log file and did not see any error, however after checking it again, per the suggestion in this post I have found the following: system erro - broken package routeros-mipsbe-5.16.npk.

So, I am guessing that my download got corrupted.

Again thank you all for taking your time to respond.

Have a great week - Johan