Intermittent Wifi

Question

I have a Pi Zero W running a fully up-to-date version of Raspbian (buster).

For some reason, the Zero isn't reliably connecting to my wifi. I followed the wifi configuration steps here. I've also watched a few video tutorials.

pi@pizero:~ $ sudo cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=US

network={
    ssid="MY SSID"
    psk="MY PASSWORD"
}

Sometimes I'll boot the Pi and it simply will not connect to wifi. Once it gets into that state my only option is to manually re-create the wpa_supplicant.conf file on the boot image sd card. That will work for a few boots... and then I'm back to having to manually update the sd card again. That is the only way I can get the Pi to connect to Wifi again. The boot image doesn't have an /etc directory so I can't examine the wpa file. The Pi is headless so the only way I can connect is via ssh over Wifi.

Am I missing something obvious? Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

It may be possible that wpa_supplicant is modifying its configuration file for some reason to permanently store configuration changes but with the change it will not work anymore. This is manged by the option:

update_config=1

Set this option to 0. This will wpa_supplicant prevent to change its configuration file so you have excluded this possebillity.