Featured Articles
Announcing Pi
Technical Specifications
Raspberry Pi FAQs
Win a Pi
Raspberry Pi Wishlist
Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • Replies 13 replies
  • Subscribers 676 subscribers
  • Views 1881 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

WiPi - failing to make it work

Former Member

I'm new to R Pi.  I have a Wi Pi which I can't persuade to talk to my wireless router.  I don't have an Ethernet cable to connect.

 

I have followed the  Wi Pi installation procedure and modified my /etc/network/interfaces file to correspond to my router's ssid and password.

 

The wipi itself flashes and lights up as if working, whether plugged directly in to the usb port, or plugged in to my powered usb hub.  But during boot there's a series of failed dhcp connections at different 'intervals', 'Unable to lease on first try.  Exiting' and 'Failed to bring up wlan0'.

 

When I try pinging I get 'Network is unreachable'.  There is no inet addr showing on ifconfig

 

Following some stray advice from elsewhere I tried creating my own wpa_supplicant.conf file but that doesn't seem to have helped.

 

I would welcome any suggestions about how to solve this.

 

I notice the encryption on my laptop to this router is 'aes' not 'tkip'.  Does that mean I should modify some entries?

 

Thanks, alan

  • I don't use WiPi, but I do connect my Pi through a USB WiFi Dongle.

     

    When I set mine up, I only had success editing the wpa_supplicant.conf file directly.

     

    I recommend you post the brand and model of your WiFi dongle, and the exact settings on your router. Don't forget to obfuscate anything that might compromise your network security. That would be any IP and MAC addresses, network names, passwords etc. We don't need to see those parts to be able to help in any case. Please post everything else.

  • in reply to guzunty

    Thanks Derek.  The router is from talktalk, it uses wpa2 with, as I mentioned, aes encryption according to my laptop.  It's a huawei hg533.

     

    The dongle is oyrcomfast88.

     

    I don't know what else might be needed.

  • in reply to Former Member

    Here is what is in my wpa_supplicant.conf file:

     

    ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev

     

    network={

      ssid="xxxxxxxxxxxxx"

      scan_ssid=1

      key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

      psk="xxxxxxxxxxx"

    }

  • There is a quite long discussion on getting adapters with this chipset working here:

     

    http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5590

     

    Some of the remedies in there will almost certainly get you going. I suggest you read the whole thread and try the easiest things first, i.e. leave kernel/module rebuilding as a last resort.

     

    Good luck and please let us know how you get on.

  • in reply to guzunty

    Thanks for the response so far.  While that thread was useful, it's nearly a year old now and things have moved on in the rasp pi a bit.

     

    To summarise, I still can't make my wi fi work.  I scrounged an Ethernet cable and updated the operating system.  I downloaded a driver specific to the chipset and installed it.  I modified both /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, which seem to be the most relevant files to get right.  I've put some hours in now, and can't seem to get action.

     

    I've succeeded in establishing a wlan0.  It appears in ifconfig, but that doesn't seem to see my router.

     

    The ssid of my connection appears most of the time in iwconfig with an 'access point' though sometimes it doesn't.  I can't see why this should vary.

     

    When I try the simple way, using the wifi gui (wpa_gui), that doesn't see any networks, and says 'Could not get status from wpa_supplicant'.

     

    Pinging 192.128.1.1 gets 'Network is unreachable'.

     

    The boot sequence for dhcp says 'No working leases in persistent database - sleeping'.

     

    I need help to get beyond this point!

  • in reply to Former Member

    Sorry, but my WiFi dongle has a different chipset so I can't really help further. Hopefully someone who has a dongle with your chipset can chime in at this point.

  • in reply to guzunty

    Thanks Derek.

     

    I'm not clear if I'm just misunderstanding the relationship between wpa_supplicant and the driver of my dongle.  I'm new to this debian/linux side of things so I'm struggling to grasp what's going on.

  • in reply to Former Member

    Well, the driver should just read what's in the conf file and use it to log onto your router. However, it may expect different keywords for the settings. Just a guess.

     

    Have you checked all the log files in /var/log? Not everything gets written to dmesg, so one of the other files in there may contain some clue to the problem. Use grep to search them all for the name of the driver and/or chipset.

  • in reply to guzunty

    I have a WiPi and different model.

    I followed parts of this for the second unit (I didn't need to modify the file)

    http://www.raspberryshake.com/raspberry-pi-wireless-network-setup/

     

    This link also has some notes for the settings expected

    http://www.mathworks.com.au/help/simulink/ug/getting-the-raspberry_pi-ip-address.html

     

     

    MyWiPi fired up straight out of the box.

    I did note that the gui sometimes had it present, sometimes not, but in my router I force DHCP to allocate a fixed IP number to that Mac address.

    By the time I tweaked that and rebooted the Pi, used the command line, I'm not sure which of them resulted in steady performance.

     

     

    You should be able to see it using your router status, and the router logs should show it.

    Is your router set to accept and issue an IP number to any device?

     

    If it helps, I can fire up the WiPi tomorrow and note the various files.

     

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    Thanks a lot.  Mark, please don't go to any trouble as yet.  After a forthcoming busy day I'll work through your and Derek's ideas for the settings next.  I haven't thought of trying it from the router end.  Grateful for help.  Alan