Wi-Fi on Pi3

Twitch0815

I would imagine that the issue is as simple that your Pi3 cannot see the wifi your router is putting out.
This could be for a number of reasons none of them related to the Pi.

Signal Strength your pi could be located to far from the router to see the signal.
Broadcast type. If your router is configured as g only it would only be seen by devices with a g wi-fi adapter on it. So make sure your router is sending or broadcasting to n type devices.

Try changing the wireless channel it broadcasts on if you have a dual band router.

See if you can get a laptop with a wireless n card in the same physical location as your PI and see if it can see the hotspot.

Try a different router.

BuZz

In your router, see if you can change the Wifi mode - the Raspberry Pi 3 wifi is 2.4ghz afaik, so check on your router if that is enabled, and if you can a) switch to another channel b) change the operating mode of the wifi

What router / access point is it btw ?

[edit] + what @Twitch0815 said

Twitch0815

Oh also very important disable power management on your wi-fi card

Edit the
/etc/network/interfaces

and paste in
wireless-power off
anywhere you like. Then save and close.

tjans

Thanks, people. This thread is a continuation of the one from the old forum but got moved here. Here's the chain of events for anyone following along new:

Couldn't see Wifi in the retropie wifi configuration
Suggested to run apt-get update/upgrade first (took several tries at a few hours of downloading per try to get it to work)
Wifi still wasn't working
Checked my router channel which is 6
Disabled power management using sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off
My router appeared, but either couldn't connect at all, or it would connect but I couldn't SSH or view via UNC path
More fiddling, corrupted the image
Reimaged retropie
Attempting to apt-get update/upgrade and again, it's having struggles finishing successfully
I brought the Pi into work, so I'll try to run the apt-get update stuff here to see if it's my connection at home (runs at 30Mb using speedtest, so it shouldn't be slow)

Here's an example of the errors I was getting during apt-get update
Get:34 Err http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org connection failed 5.153.225.207

That's off the top of my head as I couldn't copy and paste it. When it finishes it says that some packages couldn't be retrieved and it used the default ones. I don't know why that process takes so long or times out.

Twitch, thanks for the reply. My pi is right next to my router, so distance isn't an issue. And, it is dual band, so I can see 2.4 (not the 5, of course) I have gotten it to see the wi-fi as detailed above, but connection is still a problem. It's a nicer net-gear router running DD-WRT.

Lastly, is the wireless-power off suggestion doing the same thing as the sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off? What exactly is the reason for the power management issues anyway? I'd like to understand that a little better.

Meneer Jansen

@tjans said:

Couldn't see Wifi in the retropie wifi configuration. Suggested to disable apt-get update/upgrade first (took several tries at a few hours of downloading per try to get it to work).

I take it that you are upgrading from Ethernet/UTP cable?

Wifi still wasn't working. Checked my router channel which is 6. Disabled power management using sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off. My router appeared, but either couldn't connect at all, or it would connect but I couldn't SSH or view via UNC path. More fiddling, corrupted the image. Reimaged retropie. Attempting to apt-get update/upgrade and again, it's having struggles finishing successfully. I brought the Pi into work, so I'll try to run the apt-get update stuff here to see if it's my connection at home (runs at 30Mb using speedtest, so it shouldn't be slow). Here's an example of the errors I was getting during apt-get update:

Get:34 Err http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org connection failed 5.153.225.207

AFAIK that means that your network connection is bad. Or the so called 'repository' (a Linux term) where RetroPie get's its installation files from is down or has connection issues. However, I think that installing RetroPie from the latest image should not necessarily need an update. For the moment I'd forget about it if I were you.

Twitch, thanks for the reply. My pi is right next to my router, so distance isn't an issue. And, it is dual band, so I can see 2.4 (not the 5, of course) I have gotten it to see the wi-fi as detailed above, but connection is still a problem. It's a nicer net-gear router running DD-WRT. Lastly, is the wireless-power off suggestion doing the same thing as the sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off? What exactly is the reason for the power management issues anyway? I'd like to understand that a little better.

Yes. The line "wireless-power off" should be placed in the file /etc/network/interfaces (see: this link). It sets the power management of the WiFi chip off. I think that that means that the chip will not power down when it loses connection to a WiFi network. The fact that that works for you points towards power adapter probs, as others have pointed out. The fact that you get errors even if your Pi is on Ethernet points towards that too because weird things happen on an underpowered Pi.

Like I said in the old forum topic: some power adapters are not what they say they are. Buy or lend an other power adapter before you tire yourself w/ a lot of fiddling for nothing.

Twitch0815

I am just confused about your solution of disabling apt-get and upgrade. I hope you mean run the commands not disable them.

I am going to agree with Meneer this looks like a power adaptor problem. Ensure that you are using a 5.1v 2500 MA or better power plug I suggest the cana kit ones.
The other sad possibility is that the wi-fi chip has been damaged on the board.
Do you have a case? The chip is located on the bottom of the board it and the bluetooth chip and as I have heard can be easily damaged without a case.

Does your bluetooth work?

tjans

No idea why I said disable. My bad. It was suggested that I do the apt-get update because the early drivers that were used are "rubbish."

Anyway, I'll check my power adapter. I'm just Using a micro usb cable plugged into a generic usb power brick. I also got a wifi adapter from a friend to test out.

tjans

Seemily you geniuses were right :) I borrowed a friend's adapter (only 2.1) and it powered it just fine, and the apt-get upgrade is flying, and it's connecting to wireless (at least at work). I did buy my own adapter that will arrive tomorrow, so the real test will be whether it works at my house, but I have a good feeling about it. I'll report back, but I think this is good news!

tjans

Well I might have lied. I bought a Cana kit power thing made for pi3 and it didnt fix the problem when I tried it at home. Seems like it must be my router or something that it can't connect at home.

Twitch0815

You just got to keep eliminating issues.
Swap the router,
Reset the router you have and reconfigure it.
Maybe disable security temporarily and see if it connects without security as a baseline.

tjans

Precisely, looks like it doesn't like my router. I swapped my nice netgear with DD-WRT on it for a budget belkin and for whatever reason it worked just fine. That's a freakin' bummer as I liked my netgear.

Thanks for all the help, everyone!

Meneer Jansen

@tjans said:

Precisely, looks like it doesn't like my router. I swapped my nice netgear with DD-WRT on it for a budget belkin and for whatever reason it worked just fine. That's a freakin' bummer as I liked my netgear.

Thanks for all the help, everyone!

Thank you for starting the topic, I learned a lot from it. Do you have an Android phone w/ the app 'WiFi Analyser' on it? Try to measure the strength of your WiFi (real time, take a walk through your house!) and how many neighbors' signals are "in your house". Might give some insight.

tjans

This post is deleted!

tjans

@Meneer-Jansen no problem.

I have an iPhone. Switching to android after my contract is up. I have an app for my PC I could use that does the same thing.

Ps. If Jansen is your last name, we share the same. :)

tjans

Frustrating. Now it does t work with my new router. It almost has to be interference since it worked fine on my work's wifi network.

I don't have problems on any other device. I'm stumped.

Meneer Jansen

@tjans said:

@Meneer-Jansen no problem.

I have an iPhone. Switching to android after my contract is up. I have an app for my PC I could use that does the same thing.

Ps. If Jansen is your last name, we share the same. :)

Maybe the exact same same app has a version for iPhone too...

P.S. Jansen is a nick name. I am Dutch though... :-)