Raspberry Pi no WiFi connection

[MartinP]

Hi all,
Just downloaded CumulusMX image for the Pi to try after using PYWWS for many years, and installed on a 3B+ but cannot get the WiFi to work.
wpa_supplicant.conf is setup OK (as with all my other Pis) but WiFi connection refuses to work (ie will not connect to router and consequently no IP address)
ethernet connection is fine, but I want to use it headless over WiFi.
Using raspi-config after loading, (sudo raspi-config) in an attempt to configure WLAN results in an error message along the lines of "Could not communicate with wpa_supplicant"
and "There was an error running option S1 Wireless LAN"
Prior to first insertion of the SD card, and as per instructions, I had editied and renamed the .txt file for wpa_supplicant in the boot partition as usual.

At the moment I'm stumped and frustrated.
Anyone any thoughts?
TIA
Martin

[HansR]

if you give on the commandline:

Code: Select all

ip link show

does it give an interface for wlan?

An error running option S1 Wireless LAN seems to indicate there is an interface issue. Maybe the device is not functioning (hardware issue?)
Other than that I have no idea

[SamiS]

Could the wifi just be disabled? I have disabled wifi via desktop network icon ”turn wifi off”, and on boot to console it says something about rfkill. I’m not sure if that setting is stored on nvram, but if it is, then it would persist even on new os install. From console the wifi can be controlled with raspi-config if I remember correctly.

[MartinP]

Thanks for all the input folks.
WLAN0: is fine, not disabled and has worked on that particular Pi 3B+ OK for some time.
I did eventually get things going with WiFi after trying several SD cards etc, but only managed finally, by deleting the .txt file for wpa_supplicant in boot partition, booting and then using raspi-config to configure the WiFi as usual.
It is weird, because I thought I would try it on a ZeroW; wrote an 8GB card, configured the .txt file and that booted fine and configured WiFi all by itself, as it should, plus cumulusMX ran fine (if a little slowly) So I wrote a 16Gb card and did the same on the same Pi. Boots fine but ......... no WiFi!!! Go figure?
Result is, I'm happy with it running on the ZeroW for my purposes.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Martin

[HansR]

Thanks for all the input folks.
WLAN0: is fine, not disabled and has worked on that particular Pi 3B+ OK for some time.
I did eventually get things going with WiFi after trying several SD cards etc, but only managed finally, by deleting the .txt file for wpa_supplicant in boot partition, booting and then using raspi-config to configure the WiFi as usual.
It is weird, because I thought I would try it on a ZeroW; wrote an 8GB card, configured the .txt file and that booted fine and configured WiFi all by itself, as it should, plus cumulusMX ran fine (if a little slowly) So I wrote a 16Gb card and did the same on the same Pi. Boots fine but ......... no WiFi!!! Go figure?
Result is, I'm happy with it running on the ZeroW for my purposes.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Martin

So there is something wrong with the wpa_supplicant.conf. Did you use the conf extension in the boot directory or did you use .txt as you seem to insinuate?
Did you use a correct editor (e.g. notepad++)?
If you make an empty file in the boot directory with the name ssh and you have a correct wpa_supplicant.conf you can first time boot straight into the headless system.

[MartinP]

Thanks for all the input folks.
WLAN0: is fine, not disabled and has worked on that particular Pi 3B+ OK for some time.
I did eventually get things going with WiFi after trying several SD cards etc, but only managed finally, by deleting the .txt file for wpa_supplicant in boot partition, booting and then using raspi-config to configure the WiFi as usual.
It is weird, because I thought I would try it on a ZeroW; wrote an 8GB card, configured the .txt file and that booted fine and configured WiFi all by itself, as it should, plus cumulusMX ran fine (if a little slowly) So I wrote a 16Gb card and did the same on the same Pi. Boots fine but ......... no WiFi!!! Go figure?
Result is, I'm happy with it running on the ZeroW for my purposes.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Martin

So there is something wrong with the wpa_supplicant.conf. Did you use the conf extension in the boot directory or did you use .txt as you seem to insinuate?
Did you use a correct editor (e.g. notepad++)?
If you make an empty file in the boot directory with the name ssh and you have a correct wpa_supplicant.conf you can first time boot straight into the headless system.

Hans, thanks for the input.
I used the suitably edited (notepad++) wpa_supplicant.conf file in boot partition without the ".txt" extension, as per instructions.
All I need to do now is work out how to get a local web page working (although the inbuilt "dashboard" works well)
I guess we can mark this "SOLVED"
Martin