Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Help setting up WiFi
DB6BD
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by DB6BD »

I have tried with my hotspot not present. No change. Desensitation is not the problem in TDD systems, it is only in FDD systems, if RX/TX isolation is poor.

Dennos
KB1B
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by KB1B »

When trying to find a solution on other forums, I saw that several people who have had trouble with WiFi connections on the Raspberry Pi 3A+/B+ running Raspbian found that placing the country variable and value e.g. 'country=US' on the top line of the /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file worked for them.
Maybe it's worth a try?
KB1B
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by KB1B »

My sense is this problem is caused by several things resulting with the same inability to have a reliable WiFi client connection. Perhaps the country variable works for some people but there are many who likely have this variable in the usual location that experience no problems. Although a poor power supply can cause a WiFi client to fail and yield an unpredictable WiFi AP, there are many people with good power who experience issues. It may be an issue with the configuration of the WiFi AP that causes the RPi to fail as a client. My WiFi AP is a Netgear AC1750 (R6400) using WPA2 and AES. Yet there are people who use the same WiFi AP with success on an RPi 3B+ but fail on the RPi 3A+.
For those who don't have problems, it is likely they are doing something others are not.

Similar to raspi-config, people can run:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

I set the locale in /etc/environment and also do the following the following:
sudo pistar-update
sudo locale-gen

I don't have the problem of intermittent WiFi client conditions and am guessing about a solution. I'm merely stating some of the things I've done in configuring my RPi 3A+ with PiStar 4.1.0-RC6
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KE0FHS
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by KE0FHS »

KB1B wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 10:01 am Similar to raspi-config, people can run:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

I set the locale in /etc/environment and also do the following the following:
sudo pistar-update
sudo locale-gen
Tried this procedure with two 4.1.0-RC6 hotspots this morning: disabled the default en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8 and selected en_U.UTF-8 UTF-8S, and also selected en_US.UTF-8 as the default locale for the system environment.
  • The first was an RPi 4B-based one, and it worked fine.
  • The second is an RPi 3A+ hotspot, and while it changed the default locale, it failed to changed the default locale for the system environment. Tried it multiple times, but it kept hanging at the following stage, whether I ran the sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales command or the sudo locale-gen command:

Code: Select all

pi-star@pi-star-1(ro):~$ sudo locale-gen
Generating locales (this might take a while)...
  en_US.UTF-8...
At that point, the SSH windows froze (ctrl+c didn't work), and the only way to recover was by using a hard restart on the hotspot and by quitting the SSH app. Not pretty.

Too early to say whether it had any effect on the WiFi issue.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
KB1B
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by KB1B »

Interesting. It takes a while but I'm not sure why this would hang.
A friend says his PiStar/RPi3A+ fails to connect to WiFi so I'm going to look at it an report what I discover.
Can you try this: and tell me what happens?
rpi-rw
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

I re-read this thread and perhaps the RPi3A+ just has poor quality control and produced boards with borderline-bad WiFi chips?
Several people said they take the same TF/SD-card out of a dysfunctional RPi 3A+ and put it into another RPi X+ and then it works!
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KE0FHS
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by KE0FHS »

I took a different approach. I moved the microSD card from the RPi 4B hotspot that worked for resetting the locale and moved it the 3A+ hotspot, where it works fine, as expected. Then I flashed a fresh 4.1.0 image on the RPi 4B hotspot, did all the configuration, updating, and upgrading, then ran sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales, which worked. Now we'll see if that helps the underlying WiFi issue on the two hotspots (despite the title of this topic, I have had WiFi issues with my 4B hotspot, too).
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
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KE0FHS
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by KE0FHS »

I wondered about that, but whenever I ran the command successfully, starting in ro mode, it would finish in rw mode, so I figured the script must include switching to rw mode.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
ea7gwc
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by ea7gwc »

KB1B wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 7:13 pm I re-read this thread and perhaps the RPi3A+ just has poor quality control and produced boards with borderline-bad WiFi chips?
Several people said they take the same TF/SD-card out of a dysfunctional RPi 3A+ and put it into another RPi X+ and then it works!
I put the same microsd to a pi3 b + and there is no
wifi boot issues.
That same card in a PI3 A + sometimes has serious problems of
boot wifi. Once it starts well, the A + works perfectly and the wifi is stable, so I think my card is fine.

Also with Raspbian Buster there are no problems with the PI3 a + and
It always starts well.

So I think I think something goes wrong in PI-star.
73
ea7gwc
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by ea7gwc »

Any news about this annoying problem
with raspi 3A +?
73.
DB6BD
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Re: Raspberry Pi 3A+ WiFi issue

Post by DB6BD »

No change. I do not use the 3A+ anymore.
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