Cannot see any Wifi networks on rPiZeroW

[atomant]

Hello great communitiy of tiny core!

 I'm trying to connect a Raspberry Pi Zero W to my Wifi network using it's built-in adapter. I have downloaded piCore 9.0.3, burned it onto SD card, etc, had no problem with the installation. Once TCL was up and running i downloaded wifi.tcz and firmware-rpi3-wireless.tcz (and dependencies) on a PC onto the card (i created a third partition to be used to carry files inbetween rPi/TCL and the PC/Win), booted into TCL again and copied the needed tcz-s to /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/optional, used tce-load to load firmware and then wifi.tcz and they loaded without any problem (got all OKs). Added these to the bootlist.txt, rebooted TCL and then ran wifi.sh. And the problem starts here, i can see no Wifi networks whatsoever, nix, nada, zero. I cannot see any obvious errors either.

I can see the firmware getting loaded if i check dmesg (or at least i guess that's what this means):

Code: (bash) [Select]

[   16.581329] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
[   16.835064] brcmfmac: Firmware version = wl0: Aug  7 2017 00:46:29 version 7.45.41.46 (r666254 CY) FWID 01-f8a78378

If i do iwconfig i see this:

Code: (bash) [Select]

wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:off/any 
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
if i do

Code: (bash) [Select]

ifconfig wplan0 up i get no error, if then i do

Code: (bash) [Select]

iwlist wlan0 scan it says "no scan results". (Ran these as root.)

What i'm sure of:
-there are plenty of wifi networks around, next to my own i can see plenty of the neighbours' networks on my PC, on my phone, on tablets, ...
-my router's wifi is up, i'm using it right now on PC to submit this cryout for help
-the rPi has Wifi, it's the W version (it's written on it), i know the earlier versions of the Zero had no on-board Wifi but this is not one of those.
-i have both 2.54Ghz and 5Ghz networks available, rPi sees none

What i tried so far (with no success):
-using 9.0.2 of Tiny Core
-going the wpa_supplicant way to connect to my wifi (i spent many hours tweaking the config trying to get some result but nothing)
-using another rPi Zero W (so i suspect it's not a hardware problem, unless i have 2 identically faulty boards)

Notes:
-i'm not using any GUI, everything's done on terminal
-rPi is running off an 5V power supply which can output 2.25A, i'm not absolutely sure but i doubt the pi is underpowered
-the only things connected to the pi are an USB keyboard and a TV set trough HDMI

I'm stuck at this, i have no idea what i might be doing wrong. Pointers, suggestions are welcome.

P.s: i read on a non-TCL specific forum (i think it was raspbian?) that the wifi chip has to know what region/country/whatever you are in because available (legal?) Wifi signals might be different depending on this and the chip will simply miss the ones that it thinks are not present depending on it's location. I have no idea how substantiated this is and where you might find such a setting in TCL.

Thanks for reading and any help any of you can provide.

[Greg Erskine]

hi atomant,

I assume bootlist.txt is really onboot.lst ?

The country code is not necessary atm.

wpa_supplicant.config is overwritten from data in wifi.db

Did you download and install the .dep files as well as the .tcz? These files install the dependencies for extensions defined in onboot.lst. For exmaple, you define wifi.tcz in onboot.lst and wireless_tools.tcz, wpa_supplicant.tcz etc will be installed.

Code: [Select]

# |--firmware-atheros.tcz
# |--firmware-brcmwifi.tcz
# |--firmware-ralinkwifi.tcz
# |--firmware-rtlwifi.tcz
# |--firmware-rpi3-wireless.tcz
# |
# \--wifi.tcz.dep
#     |
#     |--wireless_tools.tcz.dep
#     |   |
#     |   |--libiw.tcz
#     |   \--wireless-KERNEL.tcz
#     |
#     \--wpa_supplicant.tcz.dep
#         |
#         |--libnl.tcz
#         |--openssl.tcz.dep
#         |   |
#         |   \--ca-certificates.tcz.
#         |
#         \--readline.tcz
#             |
#             \--ncurses.tcz.
FYI: We have been using wifi on RPi0W with piCorePlayer since its release so all the bits are there.

regards
Greg

    [EDIT]: Fixed typo. Changed  "install the .def files"  to  "install the .dep files".  Rich

[Rich]

Hi Greg Erskine
I edited your post to fix a small typo.

[Greg Erskine]

Thanks

[atomant]

Hi Greg,

hi atomant,

I assume bootlist.txt is really onboot.lst ?

Yes, sorry.

The country code is not necessary atm.

wpa_supplicant.config is overwritten from data in wifi.db

Did you download and install the .dep files as well as the .tcz? These files install the dependencies for extensions defined in onboot.lst. For exmaple, you define wifi.tcz in onboot.lst and wireless_tools.tcz, wpa_supplicant.tcz etc will be installed.

Code: [Select]

# |--firmware-atheros.tcz
# |--firmware-brcmwifi.tcz
# |--firmware-ralinkwifi.tcz
# |--firmware-rtlwifi.tcz
# |--firmware-rpi3-wireless.tcz
# |
# \--wifi.tcz.dep
#     |
#     |--wireless_tools.tcz.dep
#     |   |
#     |   |--libiw.tcz
#     |   \--wireless-KERNEL.tcz
#     |
#     \--wpa_supplicant.tcz.dep
#         |
#         |--libnl.tcz
#         |--openssl.tcz.dep
#         |   |
#         |   \--ca-certificates.tcz.
#         |
#         \--readline.tcz
#             |
#             \--ncurses.tcz.

As far as i can tell, yes. I used this link: http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/tinycorelinux/9.x/armv6/tcz/ and got everything (tcz, dep, txt, list, tree, whatever else there is) for the following packages (in random order):

wpa_supplicant, firmware-rpi3-wireless, readline, wifi, wireless-4.9.22-piCore, wireless_tools, libiw, libnl

and added them to tce/optional (i also considered ca-certificates but it was already there in tce/optional so i left that untouched)
As said, i used "tce-load -i firmware-rpi3-wireless.tcz" and then "tce-load -i wifi.tcz" on the command line before adding these to onboot.lst to see if i get any error but got all OKs (it listed the packages it loaded with OK as you might have guessed) so i assumed that i have everything that's needed available. Is that assumption incorrect?

FYI: We have been using wifi on RPi0W with piCorePlayer since its release so all the bits are there.

I know, that's one reason why i don't get why it doesn't work for me, i must be doing something wrong but can't figure out what.

[atomant]

I thought i try out a "stronger" PSU just to make absolutely sure it's not the power supply that is causing the trouble, i have one that can output 6A, connected the rPi, booted but nothing has changed, still saw no wifi signals at all. Bummer. Then i thought, while i'm fiddling with the hardware, i might as well just try a different keyboard and if that doesn't help, a different display. So i switched back to the original 2.250A PSU and replaced the keyboard with another keyboard, booted up and WHAM, i can see my own Wifi, i can see the neighbours' networks, could connect to mine, could ssh onto the rPi from PC. What the actual hell??? Not in a million years would i have suspected that the friggin' keyboard would cause the wifi to go blind. I did not experience any problems with the keyboard itself (not with the pi nor with anything else i had connected it to before) so...i'm flabbergasted to say at least. I remember having to be careful with hardware conflicts in the old-old times many years ago when i was putting together custom PCs but this is kinda ridicilous.

[Rich]

Hi atomant
If the keyboard appeared to be typing correctly, I probably would not have suspected it as a culprit. I suppose it's possible
that keyboard is emitting some  EMI  (either radiated or conducted) and possibly interfering with the receiver. Nice job
isolating the problem.

[atomant]

Thanks, although i kinda feel i simply stumbled upon the solution rather than worked it out. And yes, i did not notice any problems with the keyboard itself. Must be gremlins. 

[Misalf]

Great! Now problem solving becomes super convoluted. :p

[atomant]

At least i didn't get to the part where i need to hire an exorcist or sacrifice a goat at a full-moon midnight to Cthulhu.