Wifi Connect: won't accept pass phrase

Product support
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1

I have a Pi4 that’s running the wifi-connect container.

I’ve recently changed my home network settings so I need to update the wifi details on the Pi.

I’ve set up the following Device Variables in the balena dashboard for the Pi: PORTAL_LISTENING_PORT, PORTAL_PASSPHRASE and PORTAL_SSID

Now when the Pi shows up as wifi connect on my phone, I enter the passphrase I set in the PORTAL_PASSPHRASE Device Variable in balena dashboard but it tells me authentication failed.

What am I missing here?

3

Hi,

Thanks for reaching out. Can we check on the logs from the wifi-connect service? Send us the logs thru and we can also have a look.

Also, if I understand correctly you have a new passpharse set which is failing to be pickedup - right?

Regards,
Nitish

4

Hi

Thanks for replying so fast.

Yes, I’ve set up device variables for a new passphrase to use.

Can you help me learn how to get the logs from the device?

5

Hi @jangla, On the device summary page, at the top right there is a terminal which displays the logs, and a button at the top of that box which when you hover over should give you the option to download the logs as a txt file (see the screenshot), hopefully that helps!

7

A file has been uploaded using Jellyfish: Jellyfish

10

In order to get wifi connect to actually fire up, you have to disconnect it from the internet so it turns into an access point. And at that point, nothing will be added to the online dashboard logs aside from this:

 wifi-connect  Checking internet connectivity ...
 wifi-connect  Your device is already connected to the internet.
 wifi-connect  Skipping setting up Wifi-Connect Access Point. Will check again in 120 seconds
 wifi-connect  Checking internet connectivity ...
 wifi-connect  Your device is already connected to the internet.
 wifi-connect  Skipping setting up Wifi-Connect Access Point. Will check again in 120 seconds
 wifi-connect  Checking internet connectivity ...
 wifi-connect  Your device is already connected to the internet.
 wifi-connect  Skipping setting up Wifi-Connect Access Point. Will check again in 120 seconds

I therefore think I need to get logs directly from the device. Which is where I have no idea what I’m doing :smile:

11

Looks like your device is still online? Could you please confirm that the device is not connected to your network @Jangla ?

12

Those were the logs from when it was online - connected via Ethernet.

When I disconnect the ethernet cable, it goes offline and there are no logs I could post. Because it’s offline :smiley:

I’m happy to provide logs where I have them but when the device is offline, the balena dashboard won’t have logs for me to provide.

If there’s a way to grab the logs locally via balena login in terminal, I can do that - if someone can help me work out how to list out the log files.

13

@jangla When a balena device is connected by ethernet, it will no longer use the wifi connection. One thing I’ve seen and experienced before is different characters in the WiFi SSID or password. For example, I have a wifi network in my home called Dan’s Google Network, notice the ’ is not the same as ' which makes it so I have to copy-paste that character in to get it to connect. Do you have any characters like that in your SSID?

15

The SSID is “WiFiConnect”. No unusual characters. Shows up on all WiFi devices when the wifi-connect service kicks in. Then when you ask a device to connect to it, it asks for the passphrase but won’t accept the one I’ve specified in Device Variables.

16

Oh I believe I may have misunderstood previously then! In terms of local access, if the device is in development mode you can use the balena ssh command to get access. From there you could look at NetworkManager logs to see if there is any weirdness: journalctl -u networkmanager. Since you are able to connect through ethernet I don’t assume there are issues with any other component like openvpn. Let me know how that goes and if you are able to access the device locally with the balena ssh command.