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DogHead
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Bricked Routers

Sun Oct 24, 2021 9:01 am

I pulled some old units out of storage. I needed a wireless bridge for a trade show. So I started with an RB751 which had ROS 6.40.1 on it. I wanted to use Wireguard and so I tried to upgrade it to 6.49. The upgrade went fine, I thought, using Winbox. The router rebooted fine and had the OS running. So I went about setting it up the way I wanted. Then I rebooted it, and it went into a boot loop. It would blink the act light and then flash all of the indicator lights and reboot. I tried a warm reset, nothing. I tried a cold reset, nothing. The act light flashes and goes off like it is resetting, but it just goes into the boot loop. I tried using NetInstall, and it never shows up. I ran wireshark to see if there was any traffic coming out of the Ethernet port, nothing. I tried NetInstall on all the ports, nothing. I tried Netinstall with another working router and the router shows up.

So I pulled out a RB922 that I had and did the same thing. It was running ROS 6.40.3 and had firmware 3.41. I installed just the routeros-mipsbe.npk. Nothing else. It installed. Then I check what firmware it offered. It had a 6.xx version. I don't remember exactly which. But I did not upgrade it manually. I rebooted the unit and it did the exact same thing. So I tried one more RB922, I used a different laptop. Same thing.

I am guessing that the bootloader, and backup are corrupting. Was there something in a change log or app note telling you not to upgrade directly from 6.40 to 6.49?

Any suggestions on how to un brick these three routers? As there is no serial port, and the network interface is hosed, it looks like I am stuck. Netinstall is not working.

Thanks
 
mipa
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Re: Bricked Routers

Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:27 pm

Had the same problem with a bricked RB1100AHx2 which had worked fine for 6 years -it was in a startup loop.
After retrying with the rest button pressed for more than 10 seconds netinstall managed to identify it allowing me to reinstall the npk package and it started to work again.
Connect your PC to either ether2 or ether 5, I believe the other port do not work on resetting to defaults because I had a rough time with RB 751 until I read thru a manual that said use ether2

Though It has bricked on me twice while having ROS v6,49, I do not know why and also I observed that it´s FAN is on 24 hrs despite having CPU temps below 30ºC.
 
sindy
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Re: Bricked Routers

Sun Oct 24, 2021 9:08 pm

There are two bootloaders - the newer one is activated when you just connect the power, the backup one is activated if you first push the reset button and only then connect the power - https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Reset

In these cases it sometimes helps to restore factory default by pressing the reset right after applying power (if you try the newer bootloader) or before applying power (if you try the older bootloader) and then releasing it once the LED starts flashing, but maybe that's what you meant by "cold reset"?

Last, if you never did netinstall before, it may be a challenge (it actually is even if you aren't doing it for the first time ever). So at least with one of the two bootloaders it should succeed, but you may need to try several times.
 
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DogHead
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Re: Bricked Routers

Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:22 am

Thanks for the reply. But I have already tried both hot and cold boot with the reset button. I can get the act light to indicate NetInstall mode or CapMan mode, but then before the router ever shows up all the indicator lights flash and the board reboots. With console access I am blind to know what is going on. I have reset 100 times, literally, with every possible combination. And I know that Netinstall is working as it sees other routers when tries. I have worked with Mikrotik since around 2005, so I am familiar with NetInstall. But I have not seen bricking like this since the 3.x days.

Other suggestions welcome.
 
r00t
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Re: Bricked Routers

Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:37 am

Try netinstall using backup bootloader if that makes any difference.
Another possibility is the caps on the board got old and dry and PSU can't supply the CPU under load... so it reboots. But why it was working properly before... hard to say.
 
vasa85
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Re: Bricked Routers

Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:35 am

I pulled some old units out of storage. I needed a wireless bridge for a trade show. So I started with an RB751 which had ROS 6.40.1 on it. I wanted to use Wireguard and so I tried to upgrade it to 6.49. The upgrade went fine, I thought, using Winbox. The router rebooted fine and had the OS running. So I went about setting it up the way I wanted. Then I rebooted it, and it went into a boot loop. It would blink the act light and then flash all of the indicator lights and reboot. I tried a warm reset, nothing. I tried a cold reset, nothing. The act light flashes and goes off like it is resetting, but it just goes into the boot loop. I tried using NetInstall, and it never shows up. I ran wireshark to see if there was any traffic coming out of the Ethernet port, nothing. I tried NetInstall on all the ports, nothing. I tried Netinstall with another working router and the router shows up.

So I pulled out a RB922 that I had and did the same thing. It was running ROS 6.40.3 and had firmware 3.41. I installed just the routeros-mipsbe.npk. Nothing else. It installed. Then I check what firmware it offered. It had a 6.xx version. I don't remember exactly which. But I did not upgrade it manually. I rebooted the unit and it did the exact same thing. So I tried one more RB922, I used a different laptop. Same thing.

I am guessing that the bootloader, and backup are corrupting. Was there something in a change log or app note telling you not to upgrade directly from 6.40 to 6.49?

Any suggestions on how to un brick these three routers? As there is no serial port, and the network interface is hosed, it looks like I am stuck. Netinstall is not working.

Thanks
I have experienced the exact same thing this week. I've managed to brick two RB2011. The first firmware upgrade went fint, but after the second reboot for the bootloader both are now stuck in a boot loop. The interfaces LEDs comes on after a few seonds and then they reboot again. I can't even get to to boot to Netinstall.
 
r00t
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Re: Bricked Routers

Fri Oct 29, 2021 3:59 pm

For RB2011, you can use serial console to access bootloader and try to upload older .fwf file from version that's known to be working.
To get .fwf file, unpack .npk system package of version you want and look in /etc.

For boards without serial there is no hope because Mikrotik decided to disable TTL UART even if it's fully functional (just boot OpenWRT) and there is no bootloader menu to access. So if switching to backup bootloader doesn't work and board will not boot or etherboot, it's pretty much bricked.
 
vasa85
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Re: Bricked Routers

Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:58 pm

Ok, thank you. These two don't have serial console so I'll just scrap them. But now I have another RB2011 I need to update, and I feel very insecure about it. I'm not sure what will happen.
 
r00t
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Re: Bricked Routers

Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:11 pm

Do not update the routerboot unless you NEED it updated. There is ZERO reason to update it every release and Mikrotik is 100% guilty of causing this mess by dropping proper versioning for routerboot like it was before and forcing it to be same as ROS version number.
Also I would completely avoid latest stable and long term releases as they are problematic at best. Before updating any hardware, always wait at least a week and read entire thread about it here on forum before deciding to go ahead. Again, unless you need some of the new features or there are some needed security fixes, there is no need to run latest and greatest version.

As for RB922, it's sad. Especially because Mikrotik could have prevented this so easily by having proper bootloader menu. Why even differentiate between boards with RS232 and TTL UART ports? It's stupid. I asked support, never got any reply.
I have been fixing Mikrotik hardware for a long time, replacing caps, power regulators, doing hot air rework, chip swaps etc. so these are still fixable with proper equipment (desolder NAND chip, fix the contents using chip programmer, solder it back) but how many people can do this? Instead boards are heading to e-waste bucket even when hardware is still perfectly working.
 
dadaniel
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Re: Bricked Routers

Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:00 pm

Had the same problem on Netmetal ac SHP after updating the bootloader.
Netinstall solved the reboot loop.
 
Valery452
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Re: Bricked Routers

Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:04 pm

My Metal 52 AP became a brick recently.
After pluging it in I see:
metal 52 07.01.2022, 4.17 ПП.jpg
It appears immediately. No LED blinking, beeps, etc.
No response on any reset procedures.
It not visible by Netinstall on Mac with Ethernet via Wine. Main Qualcomm chip is hot ~75C.
Is it brick?
Question about continue with Mikrotik or look for other brand fit to me.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
 
wgjhonathan
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Re: Bricked Routers

Thu May 11, 2023 4:01 pm

I have problems with a new knot router, I did upgrade and now I have all the lights on, I used wireshark but it does not send any packet even in etherboot mode, any suggestions for a reset with jumper on the pcb or any other way to physically erase the nand or conect through the internal pins maybe is rs232 those pins ?

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