Really weird wifi connection issues

Question

I have a Pi 4 that I just got a month ago. It was hooked up correctly to wifi previously, but when I booted it up yesterday I can no longer make a connection.

I'm running raspbian. In the upper right, I see two red Xs over the wifi menu.

In the wifi menu, I can see the network. It prompts me for the password, then nothing appears to happen.

I wanted to try another network, so I made my phone a mobile hotspot and tried that. Same behavior.

No other device on the network is having trouble.

I've gone through a lot of prior posts and tried various things

1. ensured country code in wpa_supplicant was correct (it was)
2. removed the existing connection from wpa_supplicant and restart
3. Reboot the pi
4. Run wpa_supplicant in the foreground. That indicates an auth error, but that doesn't explain why I'm seeing it on two different networks, and I've triple-checked the network pass-key.

I'm about out of ideas. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I am not sure if we are just lucky to have this issue or if it actually affects everyone. There are known issues with the WiFi chip. Take a look into /var/log/system and see if you can find something like

brcmfmac: brcmf_sdio_hostmail: mailbox indicates firmware halted

or any occurence of brcmfmac.

In that case the firmware of the Wi-Fi chip decided to not work any more.

Also every other Raspberry-Pi model can be affected if you are lucky. My Raspberry Pi Zero works stable for a long time but there are similar complaints around. My Raspberry Pi 3B+ can't run for more than 12h without loosing Wi-Fi connectivity.

I didn't come across a solution that definitively solves the problem for everyone. I was trying it for more than a month.

Answer 2

Same issue here with a Raspberry pi 4 model B Rev 1.1 using the on-board Wifi. I am using this Raspberry as a WiFi access point. This issue happens one or two times after a day of normal use. Usually when here is a lot of traffic in the network (copying files, or reproducing video with the Chromecast). After this happens, all wifi-clients are disconnected and you have to power-off and power-on the Raspberry to get it working again.

You can find all the relevant information attached in this tarball:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/files/4790487/wifi-halted-report.tar.gz

Inside the tarball you can find: daemon.log, dpkg.log, hostapd.conf, ifconfig.log, kernel.log, lsb_release.log, lspci.log and syslog.log

Most relevant logs are located into kernel.log file, lines between 3538 and 3547. There is a time issue into this log file 20:56:37 --> 22:52:47 --> ... --> 22:17:05, not sure if it's related with the issue or not, but is strange that just in that moment of time happens the issue.

Here you can see the error:

3538 Jun 16 20:56:37 raspberrypi kernel: [13183.398916] usb 1-1.1.5.5: USB disconnect, device number 8
3539 Jun 16 22:52:47 raspberrypi kernel: [20153.194747] brcmfmac: brcmf_sdio_hostmail: mailbox indicates firmware halted
3540 Jun 16 22:53:30 raspberrypi kernel: [20196.728384] brcmfmac: brcmf_sdio_bus_rxctl: resumed on timeout
3541 Jun 16 22:53:30 raspberrypi kernel: [20196.728829] brcmfmac: brcmf_sdio_checkdied: firmware trap in dongle
3542 Jun 16 22:53:33 raspberrypi kernel: [20199.288384] brcmfmac: brcmf_sdio_bus_rxctl: resumed on timeout
3543 Jun 16 22:53:33 raspberrypi kernel: [20199.288757] brcmfmac: brcmf_sdio_checkdied: firmware trap in dongle
3544 Jun 16 22:53:33 raspberrypi kernel: [20199.288775] brcmfmac: brcmf_cfg80211_get_station: GET STA INFO failed, -110
3545 ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@     ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@     ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@     ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@     ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@     ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@Jun 16 22:17:05 raspberrypi kernel: [    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0
3546 Jun 16 22:17:05 raspberrypi kernel: [    0.000000] Linux version 4.19.118-v7l+ (dom@buildbot) (gcc version 4.9.3 (crosstool-NG crosstool-ng-1.22.0-88-g8460611)) #1311 SMP Mon Apr 27 14:26:42 BST 2020
3547 Jun 16 22:17:05 raspberrypi kernel: [    0.000000] CPU: ARMv7 Processor [410fd083] revision 3 (ARMv7), cr=30c5383d
3548 Jun 16 22:17:05 raspberrypi kernel: [    0.000000] CPU: div instructions available: patching division code
3549 Jun 16 22:17:05 raspberrypi kernel: [    0.000000] CPU: PIPT / VIPT nonaliasing data cache, PIPT instruction cache
3550 Jun 16 22:17:05 raspberrypi kernel: [    0.000000] OF: fdt: Machine model: Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.1
3551 Jun 16 22:17:05 raspberrypi kernel: [    0.000000] Memory policy: Data cache writealloc
3552 Jun 16 22:17:05 raspberrypi kernel: [    0.000000] cma: Reserved 256 MiB at 0x000000001ec00000

Basically I have a bridge br0 between wlan0 and eth0. DHCP server is running on my home router connected to eth0. I am using hostapd to convert wlan0 into an Access Point. If you need more detailed information, I can provide it.

Hope this helps!