Router shows offline or onboarding fails
Symptoms
Section titled “Symptoms”- Under Devices → All Devices, the router’s Last Seen says Never, or the time keeps getting older.
- The device page only shows Script, Delete, View Logs and More. The buttons that need a live connection are missing: Enable SSH, + Hotspot, + Hotspot Server, + PPPoE and Reboot.
- Run Config Check returns Device is offline — config check skipped.
- Alerts shows a device alert for the router.
- Customers on that router can’t log in or pay-and-connect.
Likely causes
Section titled “Likely causes”| Cause | Typical sign |
|---|---|
| The script never ran, or ran with errors | Last Seen is Never. |
| The router doesn’t meet the prerequisites | The import stops partway with an error in Terminal. |
| No internet or DNS on the uplink | The router can’t ping out or resolve names. |
| An upstream firewall blocks the router’s outgoing VPN traffic | The router has internet, but its WireGuard peer shows no recent handshake. |
| Power cut, reboot loop or unplugged uplink | It was online before and dropped suddenly, often together with an alert. |
| The router was reset or reconfigured by hand | It was online before the change and lost ISPMan’s settings afterwards. |
Checks
Section titled “Checks”On the dashboard
Section titled “On the dashboard”- Devices → All Devices: note the Last Seen time. A healthy router checks in roughly every minute.
- Alerts: open the alert for this router to see when it went offline and how long it has been down.
- Devices → All Devices → (router) → View Logs: look for recent errors from the router.
On the router (Winbox → Terminal)
Section titled “On the router (Winbox → Terminal)”Run these one at a time:
/system resource print/system/device-mode/print/ping 8.8.8.8 count=4/ping google.com count=4/interface wireguard peers print/system scheduler print/log print where topics~"script"What to look for:
- Version must be 7.18.2 or newer, and the device mode must be
advanced. - If the pings fail, fix the uplink first: cable, ISP modem, DHCP client or static IP, default route.
- If the IP ping works but
google.comfails, it’s a DNS problem. Set DNS servers under IP → DNS. - On the WireGuard peer, look for a recent last-handshake. If there’s none, the tunnel to ISPMan isn’t up.
- The scheduler entries the script created should be present and enabled.
- Fix the prerequisites and run the script again. Upgrade RouterOS, install the
wirelessorwifi-qcompackage, and set the device mode toadvanced(unplug the power for a few seconds afterwards). Then click Script on the device page, download a fresh copy and/importit again. - Re-onboard. If the router was reset or partly configured, go to More → Re-Onboard and confirm. You’ll see Re-onboarding reset, Download script and execute. Download the script and import it again.
- Onboard manually. If the script keeps failing on one step, choose More → Start Manual Onboarding. The page then shows the scripts one at a time (WAN Config, WireGuard, Bridge & Ports, API, RADIUS & Access List and Complete), plus optional service scripts. Paste them in order, then click Complete Manual Onboarding.
- Open the firewall upstream. If the router has internet but no WireGuard handshake, ask whoever controls the upstream network (your bandwidth provider or the building’s firewall) to allow outbound UDP from the router.
- Check power and the uplink. For a router that keeps dropping, check the power supply, the UPS and the uplink cable before anything else.
If you see This device has no onboarding record. Start manual onboarding to create one., use More → Start Manual Onboarding first.
After it’s back online
Section titled “After it’s back online”- Run Run Config Check on the device page and Apply Fix to anything it reports.
- If customers lost paid time while it was down, see Compensate customers after an outage.
When to contact support
Section titled “When to contact support”Contact support if:
- The router passes every check above (correct version, internet, DNS, script imported without errors) but Last Seen still doesn’t update after 15 minutes.
- You see Device limit reached when you try to add a router.
- WireGuard shows a handshake but the dashboard still says offline.
Include the router name, its RouterOS version and the output of the commands above. See Communication for ways to reach support.