A power cut this a.m had my Pi zero W reconnecting to the wrong wifi.

Which forced me to delve into the depths of network manager as evinced
by nmcli. Network manager is the new way to manage networks, and like
systemd, its all changed for the sake of it

You probably can edit the files directly - mine were in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections, but it's safer to use nmcli tools


You can set a priority if you have more than one wifi SSID.

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> connection.autoconnect-priority 1

You can also force it to use 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz or let it decide

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> 802-11-wireless.band "bg"

or

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> 802-11-wireless.band "a"


"bg" is 2.4GHz, "a" is 5GHz.

It may well be that bookworm has changed the implicit defaults in
network manager.

It is well worth dumping the connections with

sudo nmcli connection show <connection name>

To work out what the connection names are, use

sudo nmcli c show

I think - but am not sure - that you can set more stuff through the
command line than through the GUI interface to network manager


--
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

― Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles à M. Claparede, Professeur de Théologie à Genève, par un Proposant: Ou Extrait de Diverses Lettres de
M. de Voltaire

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/10/2024 18:21, Chris Elvidge wrote:

On 27/10/2024 at 15:37, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

A power cut this a.m had my Pi zero W reconnecting to the  wrong wifi.

Which forced me to delve into the depths of network manager as evinced
by nmcli. Network manager is the new way to manage networks, and like
systemd, its all changed for the sake of it

You probably can edit the files directly - mine were in
/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections, but it's safer to use nmcli tools


You can set a priority if you have more than one wifi SSID.

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name>  connection.autoconnect-priority 1

You can also force it to use 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz or let it decide

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> 802-11-wireless.band "bg"

or

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> 802-11-wireless.band "a"


"bg" is 2.4GHz, "a" is 5GHz.

It may well be that bookworm has changed the implicit defaults in
network manager.

It is well worth dumping the connections with

sudo nmcli connection show <connection name>

To work out what the connection names are, use

sudo nmcli c show

I think - but am not sure - that you can set more stuff through the
command line than through the GUI interface to network manager

Have you tried nmtui?

yes. I didnt find it as good as either the straight CLI or the GUI


--
Climate Change: Socialism wearing a lab coat.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/10/2024 at 15:37, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

A power cut this a.m had my Pi zero W reconnecting to the wrong wifi.

Which forced me to delve into the depths of network manager as evinced
by nmcli. Network manager is the new way to manage networks, and like systemd, its all changed for the sake of it

You probably can edit the files directly - mine were in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections, but it's safer to use nmcli tools

You can set a priority if you have more than one wifi SSID.

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> connection.autoconnect-priority 1

You can also force it to use 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz or let it decide

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> 802-11-wireless.band "bg"

or

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> 802-11-wireless.band "a"

"bg" is 2.4GHz, "a" is 5GHz.

It may well be that bookworm has changed the implicit defaults in
network manager.

It is well worth dumping the connections with

sudo nmcli connection show <connection name>

To work out what the connection names are, use

sudo nmcli c show

I think - but am not sure - that you can set more stuff through the
command line than through the GUI interface to network manager

Have you tried nmtui?


--
Chris Elvidge, England
I WILL NOT INSTIGATE REVOLUTION

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

A power cut this a.m had my Pi zero W reconnecting to the wrong wifi.

Which forced me to delve into the depths of network manager as evinced
by nmcli. Network manager is the new way to manage networks, and like systemd, its all changed for the sake of it

You probably can edit the files directly - mine were in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections, but it's safer to use nmcli tools

You can set a priority if you have more than one wifi SSID.

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> connection.autoconnect-priority 1

You can also force it to use 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz or let it decide

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> 802-11-wireless.band "bg"

or

sudo nmcli c modify <connection name> 802-11-wireless.band "a"

"bg" is 2.4GHz, "a" is 5GHz.

It may well be that bookworm has changed the implicit defaults in
network manager.

It is well worth dumping the connections with

sudo nmcli connection show <connection name>

To work out what the connection names are, use

sudo nmcli c show

I think - but am not sure - that you can set more stuff through the
command line than through the GUI interface to network manager

After a bit more fumbling two new wrinkles emerged. One was a report
of wifi being turned off by rfkill. This happened once before, and
re-setting the locale options seemed to fix it. This time re-establishing
the locale had no detectable effect.

After a bit more fumbling it appears that the wifi connects readily
when the wired ethernet is also connected. Maybe that's significant,
but exactly how isn't apparent to me.

Thanks for posting the hints on using nmcli!

bob prohaska

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Mon, 28 Oct 2024 01:44:32 -0000 (UTC), bp wrote:

After a bit more fumbling it appears that the wifi connects readily when
the wired ethernet is also connected.

I have the same IP address assigned to both the wired and wireless
interfaces on my laptop, on my house DHCP server. That lets me switch from
one to the other more seamlessly, and even use both at once.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

For now I'll plan to use a WiFi dongle on the Pi5 and watch what happens.

Just got a new usb-wifi adapter, a TP-Link AC1300 which works on both
2.4 and 5 GHz (the old dongle was 2.4 GHz only). It worked on the fly
out of the box, No problems whatsoever. I wondered if access to 5 GHz
bands might sidetrack the connection process, but not at all.

There is still a problem with NetworkManager-wait-online.service
failing regardless of which dongle is used. No ill effect seems
to result, but it is strange.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

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--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 06/11/2024 17:08, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:
The bookworm wifi saga continues. After a software update that
resulted in a black screen (fixed by rebooting from microSD,
which inexplicably mounted root from USB) the machine started
booting from USB but couldn't start the internal wifi.

After connecting a usb-wifi dongle and rebooting, first the usb-wifi interface came up unprompted and then the internal wifi came up a
moment later. Now both interfaces are up and working using 2417 MHz
channel 2 but different IPs.

So, it looks like the behavior of the internal wifi is dependent
on both wired ethernet and USB ethernet connectivity.

It should not be, but I'm confused you mention USB-WiFi in one paragraph
and USB-Ethernet in another.

If anybody has thoughts on what I'm doing wrong please post. This
is becoming very confusing, unless it's just teething trouble with
bookworm.

Did you start with a fresh Bookworm image?
What have you installed since?
What other hardware is connected?
Are you using an official power supply?

---druck

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

On 06/11/2024 17:08, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:
The bookworm wifi saga continues. After a software update that
resulted in a black screen (fixed by rebooting from microSD,
which inexplicably mounted root from USB) the machine started
booting from USB but couldn't start the internal wifi.

After connecting a usb-wifi dongle and rebooting, first the usb-wifi
interface came up unprompted and then the internal wifi came up a
moment later. Now both interfaces are up and working using 2417 MHz
channel 2 but different IPs.

So, it looks like the behavior of the internal wifi is dependent
on both wired ethernet and USB ethernet connectivity.

It should not be, but I'm confused you mention USB-WiFi in one paragraph
and USB-Ethernet in another.

Apolgies for the mixup. I meant to report that the behavior of
the internal wifi seems to be affected by both use of wired ethernet
and use of usb wifi. The internal wifi connected spontaneously after
connecting either a wired ethernet cable or a usb-wifi dongle. Alas,
that behavior is not repeatable. In the present config the usb-wifi
dongle connects, I can't get the internal wifi to connect though
it does detect the access point.

There does seem to be a large discrepancy between wlan0 and wlan1
signal strength: wlan1 reports 93-96%, internal wlan0 only 79%.
Prior to the recent upgrades (but still bookworm) wlan0 reporting
more than about 70% gave a decent connection.

Did you start with a fresh Bookworm image?

Initialy, yes. It was customized on microSD,
moved to a USB hard disk using Raspberry Pi Imager.

What have you installed since?

Nothing apart from supplied upgrades, but I am using wayland, which
has been described as troublesome.

What other hardware is connected?

One powered hub, running the added usb-wifi dongle
(old Ralink RT5370) plus an old Dell keyboard and mouse..

Are you using an official power supply?

No, but the Pi5 reads 5.07 volts at the GPIO header.

As this saga plays out the USB-Wifi dongle seems to
work quite well. Maybe it's all down to the better
signal strength. Because the problem appeared shortly
after an OS upgrade I tended to blame that. Perhaps
I'm mistaken.

bob prohaska

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/11/2024 21:14, druck wrote:

On 27/10/2024 15:37, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

A power cut this a.m had my Pi zero W reconnecting to the  wrong wifi.

[Snip]

You can also force it to use 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz or let it decide

Hold on, the Zero W and the Zero 2 both only have 2.4GHz WiFi

The 2.4/5 GHz Pi's are the 3B+, 4B and 5.

I think you have snipped a bit of context.

It was network manager that you could force to be on the correct
frequency & the OP has indeed got that option, I merely referred to the
zeros since that is what I have as examples of how to use network
manager to do all the crap wpa_supplicant used to do.



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.
-- Yogi Berra

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/11/2024 22:20, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Apologies for the mix-up. I meant to report that the behaviour of
the internal Wi-Fi seems to be affected by both use of wired Ethernet
and use of USB Wi-Fi. The internal Wi-Fi connected spontaneously after connecting either a wired Ethernet cable or a USB-wifi dongle. Alas,
that behaviour is not repeatable.

I am still fighting a similar issue in that one of my pis will not sort
its dns out until its been sorted out so to speak.

The common factor is a service that wont work until connectivity that it
should provide itself is already established.

I wonder if the wifi software needs access to something before it will
wake up.

I cant see why of course.


--
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the
very definition of slavery.

Jonathan Swift

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 11/11/2024 22:20, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Apologies for the mix-up. I meant to report that the behaviour of
the internal Wi-Fi seems to be affected by both use of wired Ethernet
and use of USB Wi-Fi. The internal Wi-Fi connected spontaneously after
connecting either a wired Ethernet cable or a USB-wifi dongle. Alas,
that behaviour is not repeatable.

I am still fighting a similar issue in that one of my pis will not sort
its dns out until its been sorted out so to speak.

The common factor is a service that wont work until connectivity that it should provide itself is already established.

I wonder if the wifi software needs access to something before it will
wake up.

I see something about "NetworkManager-wait-online..." failing to start
during boot up. It doesn't fail consistently, and I don't see any obvious difference in system behavior either way.


After idling overnight dmesg reports a flood of
[76285.418728] brcmfmac: brcmf_set_channel: set chanspec 0xd022 fail, reason -52
[76285.526747] brcmfmac: brcmf_set_channel: set chanspec 0xd026 fail, reason -52
[76285.630745] brcmfmac: brcmf_set_channel: set chanspec 0xd02a fail, reason -52
[76285.734787] brcmfmac: brcmf_set_channel: set chanspec 0xd02e fail, reason -52
as if something's stuck in a loop.

Wifi by way of the usb-wifi dongle is up, wavemon reports
freq: 2417 MHz [survey freq: 2462 MHz], channel: 2 (width: 20 MHz (no HT))
for the connected interface.

The internal interface reports 87% signal strength from the configured
access point but the search has apparently stopped at 5825 MHz channel
165 which can't work since it's a 2.4 GHz access point.

The network drop-down menu sees my access point through both interfaces
but won't let me try to connect the internal without turning wifi off and
back on (can't test further because I'm typing this over the wifi link).

Thanks for reading!

bob prohaska

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/11/2024 22:20, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Apolgies for the mixup. I meant to report that the behavior of
the internal wifi seems to be affected by both use of wired ethernet
and use of usb wifi. The internal wifi connected spontaneously after connecting either a wired ethernet cable or a usb-wifi dongle. Alas,
that behavior is not repeatable. In the present config the usb-wifi
dongle connects, I can't get the internal wifi to connect though
it does detect the access point.

That does sound like some of the Network Manager behaviour I've
experienced on a couple of Linux Mint laptops.

There does seem to be a large discrepancy between wlan0 and wlan1
signal strength: wlan1 reports 93-96%, internal wlan0 only 79%.
Prior to the recent upgrades (but still bookworm) wlan0 reporting
more than about 70% gave a decent connection.

The WiFi antenna on the motherboard is very small, as long as it's a
normal sized USB WiFi stuck and not one of the tiny nub ones, it's
antenna will be far bigger.

That's why I used dongles in the shed at the bottom of the garden for
years with the Pi 1 and then 2, as the signal strength was better than a
Pi 3 with built in WiFi, although the reliability of the dongles wasn't
great. Incidentally I'm now using my first Asus router as an Ethernet to
WiFi bridge, which connects to the house easily over 5GHz with it's
large triple antenna.

Did you start with a fresh Bookworm image?

Initialy, yes. It was customized on microSD,
moved to a USB hard disk using Raspberry Pi Imager.

So it's a vanilla install using NetWork Manager and not an upgrade from Bullseye as I've been doing to retain the old well working DHCPCD and
WPA supplicant networking.

What have you installed since?

Nothing apart from supplied upgrades, but I am using wayland, which
has been described as troublesome.

It can be, but not usually to networking.

What other hardware is connected?

One powered hub, running the added usb-wifi dongle
(old Ralink RT5370) plus an old Dell keyboard and mouse..

Are you using an official power supply?

No, but the Pi5 reads 5.07 volts at the GPIO header.

As this saga plays out the USB-Wifi dongle seems to
work quite well. Maybe it's all down to the better
signal strength. Because the problem appeared shortly
after an OS upgrade I tended to blame that. Perhaps
I'm mistaken.

Normally on Pi's I'd be looking at a hardware issue to do with the power
supply and the amount of USB devices connected, but I think you are
right in this case, and it's Network Manager getting confused about what interfaces are available.

---druck

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

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--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12/11/2024 17:54, druck wrote:

On 11/11/2024 22:20, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Apolgies for the mixup. I meant to report that the behavior of
the internal wifi seems to be affected by both use of wired ethernet
and use of usb wifi. The internal wifi connected spontaneously after
connecting either a wired ethernet cable or a usb-wifi dongle. Alas,
that behavior is not repeatable. In the present config the usb-wifi
dongle connects, I can't get the internal wifi to connect though
it does detect the access point.

That does sound like some of the Network Manager behaviour I've
experienced on a couple of Linux Mint laptops.

There does seem to be a large discrepancy between wlan0 and wlan1
signal strength: wlan1 reports 93-96%, internal wlan0 only 79%.
Prior to the recent upgrades (but still bookworm) wlan0 reporting
more than about 70% gave a decent connection.

The WiFi antenna on the motherboard is very small, as long as it's a
normal sized USB WiFi stuck and not one of the tiny nub ones, it's
antenna will be far bigger.

That's why I used dongles in the shed at the bottom of the garden for
years with the Pi 1 and then 2, as the signal strength was better than a
Pi 3 with built in WiFi, although the reliability of the dongles wasn't great. Incidentally I'm now using my first Asus router as an Ethernet to
WiFi bridge, which connects to the house easily over 5GHz with it's
large triple antenna.

Did you start with a fresh Bookworm image?

Initialy, yes. It was customized on microSD,
moved to a USB hard disk using Raspberry Pi Imager.

So it's a vanilla install using NetWork Manager and not an upgrade from Bullseye as I've been doing to retain the old well working DHCPCD and
WPA supplicant networking.

What have you installed since?

Nothing apart from supplied upgrades, but I am using wayland, which
has been described as troublesome.

It can be, but not usually to networking.

What other hardware is connected?

One powered hub, running the added usb-wifi dongle
(old Ralink RT5370) plus an old Dell keyboard and mouse..

Are you using an official power supply?

No, but the Pi5 reads 5.07 volts at the GPIO header.

As this saga plays out the USB-Wifi dongle seems to
work quite well. Maybe it's all down to the better
signal strength. Because the problem appeared shortly
after an OS upgrade I tended to blame that. Perhaps
I'm mistaken.

Normally on Pi's I'd be looking at a hardware issue to do with the power supply and the amount of USB devices connected, but I think you are
right in this case, and it's Network Manager getting confused about what interfaces are available.

Or perhaps what priority order they are to be selected in.

Perhaps its insisting on Ethernet before it brings up wifi etc etc.

---druck

--
All political activity makes complete sense once the proposition that
all government is basically a self-legalising protection racket, is
fully understood.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

After a bit more fumbling it appears that the wifi connects readily
when the wired ethernet is also connected. Maybe that's significant,
but exactly how isn't apparent to me.

The bookworm wifi saga continues. After a software update that
resulted in a black screen (fixed by rebooting from microSD,
which inexplicably mounted root from USB) the machine started
booting from USB but couldn't start the internal wifi.

After connecting a usb-wifi dongle and rebooting, first the usb-wifi
interface came up unprompted and then the internal wifi came up a
moment later. Now both interfaces are up and working using 2417 MHz
channel 2 but different IPs.

So, it looks like the behavior of the internal wifi is dependent
on both wired ethernet and USB ethernet connectivity.

If anybody has thoughts on what I'm doing wrong please post. This
is becoming very confusing, unless it's just teething trouble with
bookworm.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 06/11/2024 17:08, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

The bookworm wifi saga continues. After a software update that
resulted in a black screen (fixed by rebooting from microSD,
which inexplicably mounted root from USB)

I had that.

Hadn't fully made the USB drive bootable.

--
“But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!”

Mary Wollstonecraft

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 06/11/2024 17:08, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

After a bit more fumbling it appears that the wifi connects readily
when the wired ethernet is also connected. Maybe that's significant,
but exactly how isn't apparent to me.

The bookworm wifi saga continues. After a software update that
resulted in a black screen (fixed by rebooting from microSD,
which inexplicably mounted root from USB) the machine started
booting from USB but couldn't start the internal wifi.

After connecting a usb-wifi dongle and rebooting, first the usb-wifi interface came up unprompted and then the internal wifi came up a
moment later. Now both interfaces are up and working using 2417 MHz
channel 2 but different IPs.

So, it looks like the behavior of the internal wifi is dependent
on both wired ethernet and USB ethernet connectivity.

If anybody has thoughts on what I'm doing wrong please post. This
is becoming very confusing, unless it's just teething trouble with
bookworm.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

More likely the boot failure was from labwc being installed

--
Chris

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 06/11/2024 17:08, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

The bookworm wifi saga continues. After a software update that
resulted in a black screen (fixed by rebooting from microSD,
which inexplicably mounted root from USB)

I had that.

Hadn't fully made the USB drive bootable.

That an upgrade can fail is not so astonishing 8-0

However, I expected the root device to be microSD,
consistent with rpi2,-3 and -4. The desktop shown
was on the microSD, but root was mounted from USB.

Having the entire problem go away after a single reboot
with a month-older image was also rather confusing.

The Pi5 is still up, connected with both wifi interfaces
and seemingly working just fine after a day, no microSD
involved at all.

Thanks for reading!

bob prohaska

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 12/11/2024 17:54, druck wrote:

On 11/11/2024 22:20, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Apolgies for the mixup. I meant to report that the behavior of
the internal wifi seems to be affected by both use of wired ethernet
and use of usb wifi. The internal wifi connected spontaneously after
connecting either a wired ethernet cable or a usb-wifi dongle. Alas,
that behavior is not repeatable. In the present config the usb-wifi
dongle connects, I can't get the internal wifi to connect though
it does detect the access point.

That does sound like some of the Network Manager behaviour I've
experienced on a couple of Linux Mint laptops.

There does seem to be a large discrepancy between wlan0 and wlan1
signal strength: wlan1 reports 93-96%, internal wlan0 only 79%.
Prior to the recent upgrades (but still bookworm) wlan0 reporting
more than about 70% gave a decent connection.

The WiFi antenna on the motherboard is very small, as long as it's a
normal sized USB WiFi stuck and not one of the tiny nub ones, it's
antenna will be far bigger.

That's why I used dongles in the shed at the bottom of the garden for
years with the Pi 1 and then 2, as the signal strength was better than a
Pi 3 with built in WiFi, although the reliability of the dongles wasn't
great. Incidentally I'm now using my first Asus router as an Ethernet to
WiFi bridge, which connects to the house easily over 5GHz with it's
large triple antenna.

Did you start with a fresh Bookworm image?

Initialy, yes. It was customized on microSD,
moved to a USB hard disk using Raspberry Pi Imager.

So it's a vanilla install using NetWork Manager and not an upgrade from
Bullseye as I've been doing to retain the old well working DHCPCD and
WPA supplicant networking.

What have you installed since?

Nothing apart from supplied upgrades, but I am using wayland, which
has been described as troublesome.

It can be, but not usually to networking.

What other hardware is connected?

One powered hub, running the added usb-wifi dongle
(old Ralink RT5370) plus an old Dell keyboard and mouse..

Are you using an official power supply?

No, but the Pi5 reads 5.07 volts at the GPIO header.

As this saga plays out the USB-Wifi dongle seems to
work quite well. Maybe it's all down to the better
signal strength. Because the problem appeared shortly
after an OS upgrade I tended to blame that. Perhaps
I'm mistaken.

Normally on Pi's I'd be looking at a hardware issue to do with the power
supply and the amount of USB devices connected, but I think you are
right in this case, and it's Network Manager getting confused about what
interfaces are available.

Or perhaps what priority order they are to be selected in.

Perhaps its insisting on Ethernet before it brings up wifi etc etc.

The system seems agnostic between wired and wireless networking.
From its initial setup internal WiFi was the only networking option.
It worked for some months and then got flaky about one day after an
OS update, but was still usable. Shortly after a subsequent update,
the problems seemed to go away. Following yet another update the WiFi
became unusable and I moved the host where it could be hard wired.
That also put it much closer to my access point, whereupon both WiFi
and wired networking functioned.

Since then I added the usb-wifi dongle and returned the host to its
former location. The internal WiFi has connected on isolated occasions,
but the WiFi dongle works reliably and reports much higher signal
strength than the internal WiFi.

Suspicion first fell on the OS because of the initial appearance and
correction of problems after OS upgrades. Then it shifted to interference
from neighboring APs, which have about doubled in number but mostly use
5 GHz while mine's on 2.4 GHz. At this point it's unclear what's going on.

For now I'll plan to use a WiFi dongle on the Pi5 and watch what happens.

Thanks to all who've followed this thread!

bob prohaska

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bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Just got a new usb-wifi adapter, a TP-Link AC1300 which works on both
2.4 and 5 GHz (the old dongle was 2.4 GHz only). It worked on the fly
out of the box, No problems whatsoever. I wondered if access to 5 GHz
bands might sidetrack the connection process, but not at all.

There is still a problem with NetworkManager-wait-online.service
failing regardless of which dongle is used. No ill effect seems
to result, but it is strange.

For some reason the status LED on the TP-Link AC1300 never turns on.
I've tried it on both the USB 2 and USB 3 ports on the Pi5, no change.

Since yesterday's update both the interal wifi and the ac1300 come up
and work. If I remove the AC1300 the internal wifi won't connect. If
the AC1300 is re-connected, both interfaces come up. Also, the message
about networkmanager-wait-online failing during boot goes away.

Thanks for reading, and any ideas.

bob prohaska

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