Hi All,
I need some help. I have an rb532a that I attempted to upgrade from ros 3.10 to 3.11. using netinstall.
The upgrade failed. Now the unit will not boot to the os . Not even from CF card
Says "kernel not found"
I can hit "delete" to get that menu and traverse it but i just cannot boot into an os.
In netinstall it accepts the ip address but will not write the new os.

Board info is as shown
Board type: 532A
Serial number: XXXXXXXXXXXX
Firmware version: 2.15
CPU frequency: 399 MHz
Memory size: 64 MB
eth1 MAC address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
eth2 MAC address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
eth3 MAC address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

How do i fix this ?
Anybody, please.

thx

You can't boot from the CF on RB532. To fix your problem, you should try to "Format NAND" from the bootloader menu. Then try to Netinstall again. Make sure you have the latest Bootloader version:

http://routerboard.com/files/rb-2.16/rc32434-2.16.fwf

(upload with Xmodem transfer protocol from within a Terminal program like Hyperterminal)

Hi Normis,

Thanks for your quick response.
I upgraded bootloader to ver. 2.16 as you suggested. I am using netinstall ver 3.11. I formatted nand and still cannot load any version of ros.
Here is the response I get :
"Welcome to MikroTik Router Software remote installation
Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to abort

mac-address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

software-id: xxxx-zzz key:
rVMpzZE.........................................................................................................................
...............==
Waiting for installation server... "

Thx

Hi,

We experienced the same problem a few months ago with NETINSTALL and 2x RB333 boards, my supplier was as much use as an "ashtray on a motorbike", and the only real advice I got was from Normis, which, after much to-ing & fro-ing, resulted in him suggesting that the RB's were goosed, and that I should return them to my supplier ~ who at that point, hadn't got any stock, and wasn't expecting any soon

I was TOTALLY convinced that the RB's were fine, and that the issue was with NETINSTALL!!!!!

We tried disabling the firewall & various 'other' services on the XP box we were using, to no avail!!! We built 3 other machines with XP Home, XP Pro, and Vista ~ Still no luck!!

Then, as a final 'stab-in-the-dark' we tried another, older, machine we had lying around (running XP, with all the latest patches), and BINGO it worked ~ it went straight through, programmed the chip, and on reboot the RB333's were perfect!

Totally confused, we then tried the fixed boards back on ALL the other NETINSTALL installations that we had created, and it trashed them again ~ back to the old box in the corner & that worked fine - EVERY TIME!!!!

This was a real issue, and it NEARLY stopped us from using MT in our deployment.

I didn't ever get to the bottom of why this happened (and still does!), I'm just praying our old box in the corner doesn't ever die!!!! The only thing we know at this point, is that the old XP box is our ONLY machine with an intel network card? (So just maybe...?)

I assume this must me related to the network card, and for some reason the NETINSTALL program doesn't like certain (newer? Non-Intel?) network cards/chips!

If you have an old machine knocking about, I suggest you give it a try, as it took us weeks to sort this out ~ With virtually no help from our supplier or MT.

Hope that helps

Regards

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thank you for that new insight. I am working from a Lenovo laptop with intel processor and realtek (i think) NIC.
I have also tried with an older Emachines laptop with an AMD x64 processor and Broadcom NIC.

I somehow think it has to do with netinstall and perhaps the bootloader. I might be wrong.
I will however continue to try other machines.

Thanks alot.

newguy,

Other things to try (previous MT advice):

Try a hub/router between the RB & the PC.
Try a straight through / cross over cable between the devices
Put power straight to the board, and try ALL ethernet interfaces
Ensure you format the NAND before each attempt
Ensure any SW that monitors/restricts data flow on the PC is disabled/removed
- i.e. Firewall, AV, etc....

None of these things worked for us, ho-hum, but may be worth a shot!

I really think you will find that it comes down to a PC compatibility issue.

What I find really annoying with NETINSTALL, is that all RB's have enough RAM to xfer the update BEFORE it wipes out the OLD data, it could use the RAM copy (which by this point we know has been xfer'd, and could have been checksummed) to program the eeprom (or whatever they use these days!). That way, if there was an xfer error, you wouldn't kill the RB ~ Just a suggestion MT!

Have you got 'something' with an intel NIC? this may help ~ but it's only a guess (and before you ask NO, I don't work for intel )

If you have tried everything here, and it hasn't worked ~ as a last resort, try banging your head against a wall until everything goes black, it won't cure the problem, but the RB will be the last thing you're thinking about

Good luck

Dave

Hi Dave,

I have already tried most of the suggestions you mentioned.
I have not tried an Intel NIC as yet.
I am trying to find one.

I do agree with your idea that netinstall should backup the existing copy of the nand during an upgrade and restore it if the upgrade should fail.
That definately would prevent situations like I have now from occuring.
Well, I suppose I am left to try whatever I have available.

Thanks again for your advise and your moral support.

Newguy

Hi,

I am now begining to wonder if my unit (rb532a) is now my newest paper weight.

you shold RMA this device if it's still under warranty

Hi Normis,

I have this unit about a year now. Would that still be on warranty?
Anyway I dont think I will be able to find my receipts etc.

If it can't be recovered prehaps it might be just worth throwing it in the garbage.
Is it possible a hardware problem? Otherwise I thought it should be recoverable.

Thx

Did you check the MTU setting on your laptop?

Make sure it is set to 1500. We use Cisco VPN client on our service laptops and it changes the MTU down to 1398 or something close to that. We set it back up to 1500 (with the Cisco MTU utility) before working on Mikrotiks.

Tom

I would start by fining another PC, using another kind of serial cable, and maybe even another OS. Just to be sure that there is no issues with the currently tried PC network drivers, or cables. Maybe there is bad aura in your office, bring it somewhere else

I really am out of ideas, as it is booting, but something is wrong in between. It would be understandable if it would not respond at all, then we could pronounce it dead and that's all

Gents,

I got it up and running again. I managed to get ros loaded using netinstall. Honestly though, I can't say I have done anything differently.
I got it running from an emachines laptop (I had tried this machine unsuccessfully several times before). The only possible change I can think of on that machine is that when I powered it up winxp requested a security update and I accepted.

Something I did notice during the failures. I looked at the packets using wireshark. I could see that netinstall had assigned an IP address to the unit that was accepted and vmlinux was loaded using TFTP protocol. All packets were received and acknowledged.
However, immediately after an ICMP packet was sent from the laptop to RB (same ip address ) and was reported as " destination unreachable"

Thanks again to all for your support and suggestions.

If you cannot get them to work, before you throw them in the garbage, send them to me. I will take them and fix them.

I think I figured it out. You must set a static IP in the subnet of the Netinstall program. In my case, I set the computer to 192.168.1.2 since the Net booting was using 192.168.1.55. Without loading the IP, I hit all the problems you guys are reporting.

Hope this helps!

Is that the "client ip address" ?
Please note I have upgraded several times before with no issues.
This time I was going from 3.10 to 3.11.

We are skipping 3.11 due to problems experienced. The firmware seems stable, however our baseloads will not upload to 3.11 so we have stopped with 3.10.

When you say client IP address, I assume you are speaking of the computer with which you are upgrading the routerboard from. If this is the case, then yes.

If you have a running 3.10 load, just use Winbox and drop the new firmware in the Files box and reboot. This is much easier. There again, you will need a static IP on the router and the computer. You cannot do a file drop connecting soley to the MAC address.

Sorry if you missed it or I didn't state it clearly, but I did manage to get ver. 3.11 loaded and it currently is the running version. (Pls see earlier posts).
Thanks alot. I do appreciate it.

I did get it to load using netinstall.
Thanks.