Manual

Wi-Fi is gone after upgrading to v7

The Wireless menu is empty or renamed while bridges and DHCP are fine: this is the package problem.

You upgraded to RouterOS v7 and your Wi-Fi networks are gone. No SSID in the air, and in WinBox the menu is empty or suddenly has a different name. At the same time everything that is not wireless carries on: the bridge is there, DHCP hands out addresses, yesterday's leases are still listed.

That last part is the clue. If your configuration had been lost, the rest would be gone too. What is happening is one thing: RouterOS v7 has two Wi-Fi packages, and your device is not running the one your settings belong to.

Two packages, and why it matters

RouterOS v7 can do Wi-Fi in two ways:

  • wireless, the legacy package. This is what v6 had. The menu is /interface wireless, with security profiles, virtual APs and the familiar station modes. Everything you configured on v6 belongs to this one.
  • wifi, the new package, shipped as wifi-qcom for ax and be devices and as wifi-qcom-ac for a number of ac devices. The menu is /interface wifi, with configuration, security, channel and datapath.

The two share nothing. A device running wifi-qcom-ac does not know /interface wireless and therefore does not show your old networks. On some models you can choose; on most, exactly one belongs there.

The quick checks, in order

  1. Which package is installed? /system package print. You are looking for a line saying wireless, wifi-qcom or wifi-qcom-ac, and whether it is enabled. A good answer is: exactly one of the three, enabled, with the same version as routeros in the same list.
  2. Which version is the device running? /system resource print. Write down version and architecture-name. Those two decide which file you need.
  3. Is there a radio at all? /interface wifi print and /interface wireless print. If one returns an error about an unknown command and the other an empty list, you know which package is active.
  4. Is your configuration still there? /ip address print and /ip dhcp-server lease print. If those are full, nothing was lost and this really is only about the package.
  5. Is there room? /system resource print shows free-hdd-space. A ten megabyte package does not fit on a board with two megabytes free.

The mistake nearly everyone makes

The package has to be exactly the same version as RouterOS on the device. Not "close enough", not "the newest". Put wireless-7.24.npk next to RouterOS 7.23.5 and it is silently ignored on reboot. There is no error message, nothing happens at all, and you spend the rest of the evening looking in the wrong place.

So: read the version with /system resource print, download the Extra packages for exactly that version and exactly that architecture (ARM, ARM64, MIPSBE, SMIPS, TILE), unpack the zip, drag only the package you need into Files, and reboot. Afterwards it shows up in /system package print with the same version as the rest.

Which package do you actually want?

There are two valid answers, and it is a choice rather than a repair.

  1. Back to wireless. Install the wireless package, reboot, and your old v6 settings work again. This is the quickest way back and the right call if you just want to carry on.
  2. Forward to wifi. Keep wifi-qcom-ac and set Wi-Fi up again. You get WPA3, fast roaming and band steering, plus this package's own CAPsMAN. Your old Wi-Fi lines cannot be reused: they have to be rebuilt.

If you go with the new package and use CAPsMAN, note that /caps-man only works for access points running the wireless package. Access points on the wifi package use /interface wifi capsman and have to be set up again.

What the configurator does about it

  • Paste your v6 export into the Import section and the tool judges it per model. If the device can run either package you get exactly this warning: the v6 settings only work with the wireless package, and if wifi-qcom-ac is installed after the upgrade your networks are not shown while bridges, DHCP and leases are still there. If the model belongs on the new package, the tool says the SSIDs and passphrases are carried over and rebuilt as /interface wifi, and asks you to check channels, guest SSIDs and VLANs. If only wireless applies, it reports that /interface wireless is unchanged in v7 and was kept as it was.
  • If that export contains /caps-man, the tool warns separately that this only works for wireless access points on v7.
  • Generating a new script for a model whose package we could not confirm, the tool says: check that the wifi-qcom package is installed on this device. The script writes /interface wifi lines, and without that package RouterOS rejects them.
  • Pick WPA3 on a device that belongs on the legacy package and the tool sets the SSID up as WPA2-PSK (AES), saying the legacy package has no WPA3. That is not a fault, it is a step below what you asked for.

The honest limits

The tool knows which package belongs to a model from its own catalogue, not from your device: it runs in your browser and talks to nothing. On models we could not verify it stays a question for you, which is exactly why that warning exists. Which version your device runs, which architecture it has and how much flash is free can only be answered by the device itself.

Read on: From RouterOS v6 to v7, Checks about Wi-Fi and Packages in RouterOS.

Want to try it right away? Open the configurator