RPi3 WiFi interface failure

That’s the stupidest feature I ever saw. I wonder if that was happening to me previously.

First thing I checked.:smiley:

This happened to one of my Pi3B+ units using the package install - loss of wireless function, also all logging stopped. Was running the gain tweak script at the time.

Reformatted SD card, reimaged and worked fine.

I miss the older electronics, you usually got to see smoke when the magic leaked out.

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Tried that a number of times. I have more than one RPi, that enabled me to confirm the SD card was not the problem.

Sorry, I see now you have tried a lot of things. Very much sounds like its now a 802.11 n/w device

You guys have WiFi cables to plug in? Or is sarcasm and I am too slow?

Yes…and by using different AWG, bandwidth can be controlled.:wink:

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I forgot to take my “smart-up” pill this morning… :pensive:

I cannot believe this. I wasted hours on this issue yesterday troubleshooting it, unsuccessfully.

I just VNCed into the ‘defective’ RPi, and WiFi is working again. WiFi country is now being saved (the office RPi is running Raspbian).

I left it ON yesterday, after the exchange, as I usually do with the office RPi. No changes, no reboots, I simply VNCed into it to load the web browser to monitor FT8 (an amateur radio mode) traffic, nothing else.

Maybe the WiFi cable was not seated properly.:sweat:

Shaking my head.:unamused:

It just hates you. That’s all…

Maybe your WiFi cable is directional like top of the line audio cable and you put it in back to front and all the WiFi particles fell off.

S.

Pi 3 wifi has power management, sometimes with issues. Check e.g.: Disable power management in Stretch - Raspberry Pi Forums

Same issue here:
Pi 3 just stopped wifi on 11th Sept at 15:10
Reboot same pi with a different SD card, wifi is fine.
/boot/piaware-config.txt hasn’t been changed but shows all corrrect wifi login details.
Any ideas, please?

Ta!

Hi, can you provide logs from the device?

Please provide output from the following command:

sudo journalctl -t wpa_supplicant -f -n 100

If you can’t get in via ssh over ethernet maybe you can connect a screen and keyboard and do it that way.
A photo of the screen after typing the command will suffice :slight_smile:

Other than that it’s hard to diagnose further. Did you run any updates lately or changed anything else?

pi@piaware:~$ sudo journalctl -t wpa_supplicant -f -n 100
journalctl: invalid option – ‘t’

No other changes have been made at any time recently.
ADSB Pi just sits in the loft.

Checking sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
It’s an empty file…

Sorry that seems to be a new journalctl feature, try this command:

sudo journalctl | grep wpa_supplicant

We’ll see from there if you want to hang in there :slight_smile:

Do you have the auto-update feature activated or is that standard on the piaware image?

From Pi 3

pi@piaware:~$ sudo journalctl | grep wpa_supplicant
Sep 12 12:10:32 piaware generate-network-config[325]: Updating /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa-roam.conf ..
Sep 12 12:10:32 piaware wpa_supplicant[377]: Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant

Using USB WiFi dongle on same Pi3
SSID is correct, redacted here…

pi@piaware:~$ sudo journalctl | grep wpa_supplicant
Sep 12 11:31:34 piaware generate-network-config[341]: Updating /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa-roam.conf ..
Sep 12 11:31:35 piaware wpa_supplicant[393]: Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
Sep 12 11:31:36 piaware wpa_supplicant[394]: wlan1: CTRL-EVENT-REGDOM-CHANGE init=BEACON_HINT type=UNKNOWN
Sep 12 11:31:36 piaware wpa_supplicant[394]: wlan1: SME: Trying to authenticate with 10:da:43:bc:40:34 (SSID='###########' freq=2472 MHz)
Sep 12 11:31:36 piaware wpa_supplicant[394]: wlan1: Trying to associate with 10:da:43:bc:40:34 (SSID='##########' freq=2472 MHz)
Sep 12 11:31:36 piaware wpa_supplicant[394]: wlan1: Associated with 10:da:43:bc:40:34
Sep 12 11:31:37 piaware wpa_supplicant[394]: wlan1: WPA: Key negotiation completed with 10:da:43:bc:40:34 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
Sep 12 11:31:37 piaware wpa_supplicant[394]: wlan1: CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 10:da:43:bc:40:34 completed [id=0 id_str=wireless]
Sep 12 11:31:37 piaware wpa_action[630]: WPA_ID=0 WPA_ID_STR=wireless WPA_CTRL_DIR=/run/wpa_supplicant
Sep 12 11:31:38 piaware wpa_action[790]: creating sendsigs omission pidfile: /run/sendsigs.omit.d/wpasupplicant.wpa_supplicant.wlan1.pid
pi@piaware:~$

Auto and manual updates = yes in .conf

Ok as you seem quite adept at this let’s try one more thing as i can’t see much.

cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa-roam.conf would be interesting.

also while it’s running you can check what wpa_supplicant is doing via:

sudo wpa_cli (enters application command prompt)
interface wlan0
scan (wait a bit)
scan_results

This is just to check if it even sees the wifi you should connect to.

That’s all that comes to mind right now, sorry grasping at straws a little bit.

pi@piaware:~$ sudo cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa-roam.conf
Generated automatically by fa_config_generator
This file will be overwritten on reboot.
network={
ssid=“#############”
id_str=“wireless”
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk=“#########”
}
pi@piaware:~$ sudo wpa_cli
wpa_cli v2.3
Copyright (c) 2004-2014, Jouni Malinen j@w1.fi and contributors

This software may be distributed under the terms of the BSD license.
See README for more details.

Selected interface ‘wlan0’

Interactive mode

interface wlan0
Connected to interface 'wlan0.
scan
OK
<3>CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED
<3>CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
scan_results
bssid / frequency / signal level / flags / ssid

After typing scan_results there should be a list of wifi networks in your area. I have literally no idea why it wouldn’t detect any.

What different image did you try where the wifi worked? You could always just get a standard Raspbian stretch image and set piaware up like that.
Little more of a hassle as you need to write wpa_supplicant.conf yourself but it’s mostly documented on the raspi forum.
Installing piaware after that is documented on the flightaware page.

With a lot of people having problems with wifi in the last few days i get the impression 3.6.2 changed something that sometimes makes wifi not work.

Or you could just try the wireless-country option in piaware-config.txt
wireless-country US (for example)
Maybe that helps, but as you can tell i’m grasping at straws at this point sorry.
I think changing that requires a reboot to take effect.