Hi There,

this week I found one of my MikroTiks in rebooting death-loop.
What happened: I'm using the auto-upgrade script on all MikroTik routers I wrote: https://github.com/massimo-filippi/mikr ... pgrade.rsc
It works really well and works for years without an issue, but now after the upgrade, I found router in a reboot loop.
What I found is that it can happen after the non-successful upgrade.

So after some fighting, I was able to run Netinstall tool and was able to install the firmware manually.
When the install ends, there is Reboot button, so I rebooted my device and... it will end up with text "ether boot" showing on its small screen. Tried to reboot several times, nothing happens.
I was worried that it can be some bug in 6.43.1, but I'm still waiting for the response from MikroTik support, so I'm sure.
Anyway, I tried to install different versions: 6.43.1 (latest), 6.43 and 6.42.7 - but the result is still the same . after install and reboot I'll end up with the "ether boot" on the screen.

Please, do you have any advice? Just broken one piece of HW? Or something else?
The Winter is coming... oh no, Saturday is coming and I'm really scared of the mass auto upgrade of all my routers!

Thank You all
Maxim

There appears to be an issue in 6.43.1 as I have seen this complaint in the 6.43.1 release topic several times.
It is not related to your particular auto-upgrade script but just to the 6.43.1 release.
Of course it is always dangerous to auto-upgrade firmware without watching the release topic, but on the other
hand it is also dangerous to never upgrade firmware. Difficult decision.
I think when I had a completely autonomous auto-upgrade script like that I would try to make some trick to
upgrade only after some newer version has been available for one or two weeks... hopefully then in case of
disasters like this the version will be pulled or some newer version will be in place before you auto-upgrade.

There appears to be an issue in 6.43.1 as I have seen this complaint in the 6.43.1 release topic several times.
It is not related to your particular auto-upgrade script but just to the 6.43.1 release.
Of course it is always dangerous to auto-upgrade firmware without watching the release topic, but on the other
hand, it is also dangerous to never upgrade firmware. Difficult decision.
I think when I had a completely autonomous auto-upgrade script like that I would try to make some trick to
upgrade only after some newer version has been available for one or two weeks... hopefully then in case of
disasters like this the version will be pulled or some newer version will be in place before you auto-upgrade.

Thank You for the detailed explanation. And I'll share more info: In my setup - only the router at my home will auto-upgrade everyday - because in the case of any trouble, it's not affecting our production system and of course, I can spend a beautiful nigh fixing the problem only on ONE router - which is the situation which actually happened right now. All other routers are auto-upgrading on Saturday, so I have time to disable the auto-upgrade in cases like this and - if any other problems come - I can spend a beautiful weekend debugging all the other routers.

So for now, I'm going to disable auto-upgrade on all routers and I'm waiting for MikroTik support to answer my question.

PS: and it will be probably the good idea, to add to my script some option/check to disable auto-upgrade centrally for all the routers (checking URL, or so...)

Thank You
Maxim

Obviously, MikroTik staff is busy with screwing firmware releases, so I will answer myself, so others can read this post at least. This is the concept of a post for the MikroTik support team, please modify and use it as you wish.

Dear customers and community members, unfortunately, we totally screwed the 6.43.1 release which we released in our "stable channel". If you upgraded some routers to this version, there was a big chance to brick the unit. So we released a new version 6.43.2 which will fix the issue. Unfortunately, you have to sit in your car, bike or motorcycle and make a beautiful trip via all your router locations, because this can be fixed manually on site - we wish you an pleasant weather. Please be aware, that you need to pickup some computer infected by Windows and install our buggy Netinstall tool. If the tool will not work as you expected, please stay calm, that's the way we're doing the software. Just restart the bloody thing few times and it will eventually work sometime.

Kind Regards
MikroTik
We're moving data forward. And your ass too.

Not true. Nearly the same exact situation happened to mine. RB2011UiAS. It was running an old ROS. I tried to update it online..,
Once it was done it freaked out and went into a constant reboot and just said 'ether boot' on the led screen. Sent emails to support, they did reply but was not much help. Netinstall seemed to be the only option, but it wasn't working, could never get the MAC to show up on the Netinstall tool.. Finally in last ditch efforts from reading Netinstall posts I loaded a clean install of Win XP on an old laptop; disabled firewall; did the reset and held down the button and finally the Mac was showing up, and reloaded the old config from there... then I UPLOADED the new one (6.42.6) to the router instead of trying download it with the router in the auto update feature ( should be best practice to NOT use auto-update ). After that it was back to life..