Not to resurrect a dead post, but this was the first helpful result in a quick search so I'd imagine others would kand here as well.

For me the issues was the keyboard mapping. I didn't realize it was off until I went to manually edit a /etc/network/interfaces.d/99-wifi file to add the lines referenced above. Vi was acting weird because of the mapping being off.

tl;dr make sure all of the localisation settings are configured prior to doing the wifi setup.

Hostname works but only with Ethernet
Tried without Ethernet just continues trying to connect
I usedhostname retropie

@benmclean
That's awesome! However, what I've really wanted (and can't believe is not there) is an OSK built into ES. Like when ES throws up a dialog that requires text input...see Kodi for examples. It should be pretty easy. I can program but I haven't programmed in 15+ years. It would take me about 6 months to figure out to get an environment setup to start working on it, then another month to familiarize myself with ES code, then maybe a week to actually code it. I've created an OSK in a script before.

It's just an array of characters. Display the array. 'Earmark' the current position in the array onscreen. Get left/right/up/down input. Move earmark in the array and onscreen. Get 'enter' input. Copy content of current position in the array to the text field.

It would be so nice to be able to edit game metadata from within ES without a keyboard.

thank a lot for you help
problem solved

@mitu The Bluetooth is down. I could not get my controllers to connect. They would with the usb cable, but not Bluetooth. I think the module might be done.

@SolemnSpirit Thanks that helped!, the moment i remove the key_mgmt, i was able to connect to the wireless! :D i appreciate you posting this!

A Raspberry Pi Zero doesn't have a WiFi NIC, so not being able to connect to WiFi is the expected result.
Only Pi Zero W and Pi Zero WH have WiFi NICs.

sorry my bad just new to forrums etc and the retro thing :)

@granderjoree We don't support 3rd party images - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

@mitu
Thanks sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -d to debug helped a lot.
It was the very first line /etc/ssh/sshd_config that had been uncommented, I noticed it wasn't in yours but it kind of blends in and I kept ignoring it for some reason.

@mitu

You forgot to ask me an important question, "Is there a copy of that image?"

The answer is yes!!! I am now back in business. This time I will pay close attention to what the heck I am changing. This was a great learning opportunity, however, so thank you very much for your support. =)

I have two cards for the sake of clustering, in case you were wondering.

Alright, I've tried Ubuntu MATE 18.04 beta 1 extensively and the problem does not occur on Ubuntu at all. Must be a Raspbian issue. Definitely not my hardware. I hate to dig up a month old topic, but it is what it is. A Raspbian issue.

@mitu said in Speeding up retropie boot up on a Pi zero and turning off BT & WiFi..:

@MachLid One thing you can do to speed up the boot is to disable file shares (Samba services). From what I've noticed, this is one of the services that takes up a lot of time (proportional to the total boot time) to start up.
I've looked up in the RetroPie-Setup script and you only have the options to remove Samba completely (not disable it), so you'd have to use the command line to disable the services manually.

sudo systemctl disable smbd sudo systemctl disable nmbd

More ideas and help!! thank you very much, and I'm also going to try this as well.
I have no problem killing anything unnecessary on it in order to speed up booting into the game selection menu.
What I'm hoping to do with this Pi Zero is simply and only use it for mostly Atari 2600 stuff and maybe some popular arcade games from pre 1990's or earlier (if it'll handle it).
I grew up with a Atari 2600 and lots of this stuff thru out the 1980s,, and thought it'd be neat to have something very little and compact (and even battery powered) and be able to quickly power on, and play some of the true classics. Not sure what I'm doing yet for a compact and portable housing or anything like that yet,, I just wanted to square away the working parts first.

Thanks again.

You can transfer ROMs via a usb stick

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Transferring-Roms

you need to shutdown turn you pie off then set your network up with raspi-conf then it works again dont know why just does well for me anyway.

@Bravenstein
How did you update without a network connection?

@Otter22 The Wifi is not setup from Emulationstation, but via the RetroPie-Setup. You should have a WiFi menu entry in the RetroPie system in Emulationstation - just like it's described in the Docs.