Problem updating routeros 7 on hap ac2 (RBD52G-5HacD2HnD)

Good day to everyone in the forum, first of all I wish you happy holidays and happy new year.

I have a problem that happens every time when a new RouterOS update is released of version 7x, like the latest stable version v7.13. In practice, using winbox\system\packages, the download occurs correctly, but upon restart I get this error message "router was rebooted without proper shutdown, probably kernel failure" and obviously the ac2 hap has not been updated. The currently installed version is stable v7.12.1. There's no point in denying the latter, I installed it using NetInstall. Is it possible that to update it I only have to use this tool (NetInstall)? Or is there some other check to carry out? I say this because I also have an SXTR LTE (RBSXTR) and the update works correctly from WinBOX

Thanks to anyone who can help me

Check free flash space before trying to upgrade. ROSv7 fits very tight on hAP ac2, after installing 7.13 (tested rc2) there's only around 300kB free and if one replaces wireless with wifi-qcom-ac free space drops by another 150kB or so. And depending on amount of config free space can be even lower (or zero in not so rare cases). If free space is not at least few hundred kB, upgrade will probably fail.

Check free flash space before trying to upgrade. ROSv7 fits very tight on hAP ac2, after installing 7.13 (tested rc2) there's only around 300kB free and if one replaces wireless with wifi-qcom-ac free space drops by another 150kB or so. And depending on amount of config free space can be even lower (or zero in not so rare cases). If free space is not at least few hundred kB, upgrade will probably fail.

/system/resource> print
uptime: 2h17m20s
version: 7.12.1 (stable)
build-time: Nov/17/2023 11:38:45
factory-software: 6.45.9
free-memory: 54.1MiB
total-memory: 128.0MiB
cpu: ARM
cpu-count: 4
cpu-frequency: 896MHz
cpu-load: 2%
free-hdd-space: 0
total-hdd-space: 15.2MiB

here is the response. Even if I haven't uploaded any files, is there a way to free up the free space?

Netinstall is the only way, I guess.

After that, try to slim-down config a bit. Extensive address lists (anything with more than few tens of addresses) are one feature eating flash space.

After that, try to slim-down config a bit. Extensive address lists (anything with more than few tens of addresses) are one feature eating flash space.

I already have a pretty simple setup. The backup is 400kb. So you're telling me that by resetting the configuration and doing the update, and then restoring the configuration, everything should work? Truly strange that a quality product such as HAP AC2 has this limitation.

Don't restore config from backup.
Use export and import again block by block.

I already have a pretty simple setup. The backup is 400kb.

My backup is 390kB and yet I was forced to uninstall all wireless drivers to keep using it as router. I guess that if hAP ac2 was used as simple AP (without firewall &co) it would probably be fine as well. But it does seem that 7.13 is a bit "too fat" for hAP ac2 if one wants to use it as router/AP combo (as it's supposed to be). Unfortunately.

As soon as I can I'll try to do an export, reset config, upload routeros via LAN, update (hopefully good), and import. However, the procedure with NetInstall is laborious. I'll keep you up-to-date

Nobody said netinstall is the easy way
But most of the times it is the only one.

If there is 0KiB of a free space remains, it is expected that no changes will be saved. Netinstall is really the only way to fix it.

Update. I upgraded. Unfortunately with NetInstall. But when I had to reconfigure it from 0 to blocks through the previous export. The nice thing was the monitoring of resources, to understand in the configuration what was really weighing it down. I discovered that the biggest fault lies in the certificates (around 110) used for the DoH Server (cloudflare). Lately I've been studying a new system for simplifying these certificates using those from Google (36 in number) and miraculously I have more or less 400kb of free resources. I think that in reality only one certificate should be needed. I'm also curious if in the next upgrade, given the free space, if it finally happens without using NetInstall.

Now I'm doing some tests with just one certificate (680 Kb free). I think I'm on the right track
source of Cloulflare root CA certificate: https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloud ... ertificate

However, I went back to using Google root certificates (36) with 400 kb of free resources. Only one certificate, probably not suitable from cloudflare. it is not sufficient for the functioning of the doh dns server. It will probably be another thread trying to understand the optimization of certificates based on the type of DNS server service chosen (google, cloudflare, nextdns, etc.). Suggestions welcome, thanks everyone