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Raspberry Pi Zero W WiFi issues
Posted: Wed May 10, 2017 7:42 am
by emmanuelt
Hi,
I recently bought a Pi Zero W and I noticed that the the WiFi connection is not stable.
After an unspecified amount of time the Pi Zero looses connection to the wifi network.
If I check the wlan0 interface with ifconfig, I can see the wlan0 interface but the IP address is lost.
I have to do
ifdown wlan0
and then
ifupo wlan0
to get the IP address again.
Some details:
1. I am using 2017-04-10-raspbian-jessie-lite image with all updates installed.
2. I have disabled power management on the wifi interface with
3. I am using WEP as a WiFi security protocol
Did anyone have similar issues with Pi Zero W ?
Thanks
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero W WiFi issues
Posted: Wed May 10, 2017 9:19 am
by 4LULZ
I've had similar issues with the Pi 3b but not the Zero W.
You can use a script to monitor the connection status and if it drops out the script can run the ifdown / ifup commands for you but this is a workaround at best. Here's what I used:
Code: Select all
if [ $? != 0 ]
then
echo "No network connection, restarting wlan0"
/sbin/ifdown 'wlan0'
sleep 5
/sbin/ifup --force 'wlan0'
Fi
In the end I
think it was a range issue with the Pi 3b because adding another access point closer to the pi sorted it out. Best of luck.
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero W WiFi issues
Posted: Wed May 10, 2017 10:08 am
by emmanuelt
Thank you for your reply.
I have already created this script.
The question is actually why this happens.
The "range" is not the case since the Pi Zero W is next to the AP.
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero W WiFi issues
Posted: Wed May 10, 2017 7:28 pm
by emmanuelt
I am logging the ifdown/ifup that the Pi Zero W is doing.
From the log file it is evident that, if the Pi is left idle the script has to reconnect the Pi every 10 minutes
Does anybody know why Pi Zero W looses connectivity every 10 minutes ?
May I remind that the power management of the WiFi interface is turned off, but turning it off had no effect.
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero W WiFi issues
Posted: Wed May 10, 2017 7:57 pm
by DirkS
You don't need to switch off power management; it's off by default.
I have Pi 3B and 0W running for days and I don't have any problems with connectivity. I can connect at all times.
Maybe the problem is with how your AP manages connections?
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero W WiFi issues
Posted: Thu May 11, 2017 1:18 am
by 4LULZ
0W running for days and I don't have any problems with connectivity. I can connect at all times
Same, I've had my 4 x 0W's connected via wifi for 2 weeks now, no dropouts / stability issues whatsoever.
Re: Raspberry Pi Zero W WiFi issues
Posted: Sun May 14, 2017 4:10 pm
by emmanuelt
Thank you DirkS and 4LULZ for your answers. Your answers made me search a little bit more since as you said, your Pi Zero W were working fine.
I changed my router's security mode from WEP to WPA2 and the problems stopped.
I also changed the configuration of raspberry Wifi from:
/etc/network/interfaces
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid MY_SSID
wireless-key s:MY_PASSWORD
to the original:
/etc/network/interfaces
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
and
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
...
...
network={
ssid="MY_SSID"
psk="MY_PASS"
}
Now it does not disconnect anymore.
Maybe it was the WEP security mode, maybe my WEP configuration on /etc/network/interfaces for WEP was not correct.
I don't know. What I know is that now it works fine.