wifi won't connect

Product support balenaOS
1

hi
I used the balena dashboard to download the image and configure my wifi. Hwoever it won’t connect to my AP.

I am 100% certain the password is correct because I mounted the sd card on my pc then copy and pasted the password so I could join my pc to my wifi. I could join it with no problems.

One thing I did notice is, there is no resin-wifi file in /resin-boot/system-connections however there is a file callled balena-wifi-01 file in /mnt/boot/system-connections. It contains the settings for wifi.

is there an easy way i can get my wifi dongle to scan for wireless networks? Just so I know it works. I am running the raspberry pi 1.2b board which doesn’t have onboard wifi. So I am using a usb wireless dongle.

nmcli con show --active
my wifi dongle isn’t listed there

however it appears the dongle is detected by the kernel as it’s listed when I execute lsusb

2

Hello @ageis first of all welcome to the balena community!

I have some questions for you:

  • Could you please confirm that you can see the modem through the /dev/ttyusb*?
  • Did you turn on your device with the modem connected?
  • Could you please confirm the brand of your modem?
  • Could you please try something like mmcli -m 0?

Thanks

3

You have misunderstood me. It’s not a modem. It’s a USB wifi dongle by lb-link. According to lsusb it’s a ralink. According to dmesg, it’s using rt2800usb driver and is 5

If the wifi dongle should have a ttyusb device file then I don’t see one.

Yes I did boot up the raspberry pi with the wifi dongle connected

4

Hi Steven, is this WiFi dongle working on the official RaspberryPi OS?

6

I’m encountering a same situation. I’m confident that my Wi-Fi password is correct (as it works flawlessly on my PC), my Raspberry Pi isn’t connecting to my access point. One notable observation is the absence of a resin-wifi file in /resin-boot/system-connections , but I do have a balena-wifi-01 file in /mnt/boot/system-connections with the correct Wi-Fi settings. It’s worth noting that I’m using a Raspberry Pi 1.2b board with a USB wireless dongle, as it doesn’t have onboard Wi-Fi. The issue gets murkier as my dongle isn’t listed in the nmcli con show --active command.

7

Hi Gavin, what is the brand and model of the WiFI dongle you are using? Did you confirmed it works with RaspberryPi OS?

8

Hello @GavinBrody could you please confirm the brand and model of the WiFi dongle you are using? Did you confirm it works with Raspberry Pi OS?

Thanks

10

It seems like your WiFi dongle is recognized by your Raspberry Pi, but it’s not connecting to the WiFi network. To check if the dongle can scan for networks:

  1. Open the terminal on your Raspberry Pi.
  2. Type sudo iwlist wlan0 scan and press Enter. Replace wlan0 with your dongle’s interface name if it’s different.
  3. This command scans for available WiFi networks. If it works, your dongle can scan for networks.

If this doesn’t work, there might be an issue with your dongle’s driver or the configuration file. Since the dongle is detected (as seen in lsusb), the driver might be okay, so check your WiFi configuration file. Ensure it’s correctly placed and named as per your system’s requirements.

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