Symbolic Fail

I agree that Mathcads symbolics is disappointingly weak.

It wasn't top notch at the times of MC11 and Maple, but it got awfully worse with muPad.

Using "assume,ALL>0" is dangerous in combination with solve and often makes the expression fail. I don't know why - maybe because muPad tries to ensure that the solved for variable is also greater than zero and fails doing so. So its better to state one by one that x>0, y>0, etc. Its not necessary to state that x=real if you already have x>0.

Wile the ability to handle equations and expressions of integer arithmetic, like diophantic equations and similar, are near to nonexistent, it nevertheless sometimes helps to state that n=integer.

Using what I explained above I was able to get a (somewhat strange and not fully simplified) solution for your equation,

but nevertheless I encountered a strange effect which leaves me clueless.

In an attempt to strip down the equation to its bare-bones I arrived at

which obviously failed.

After adding alpha Mathcad found a solution

Its crazy - I have no explanation for this! You would think that alpha=1 is as good as any alpha >0  - Mathcad/muPad obviously thinks differently about that?????

Regards

Werner