RoPieee boot loop when I connect to WiFi

Audio Gear Talk RoPieee
1

Hello,

I’m having difficultty setting up RoPieee to use WiFi on my RPi 4B 8gb. The RPi is 2 meters away from the router, which provides both wired and wireless connectvity over the same subnet.

I start with a freshly flashed official image (ropieee_pi4-2025.10.2-stable.20251109.2900.bin.xz, flashed with Balena Etcher). The RPi only has LAN and power connected (official power supply). The router is configured to give the RPi’s LAN interface a predictable IP. After the initial setup everything comes up fine.

With all default settings, I go to Network and enable WiFi, Apply, Configure, Reboot. RPi comes back up just fine, still accessible over LAN.

Now I go to Network, use the SCAN button to find my network, select it, and enter an incorrect WiFi password. Apply, Connfigure, Reboot, RPi comes back up just fine, still obviously only connected to LAN.

Now I go to Network, and set the correct WiFi password. Apply, Configure… and the RPi never comes back, neither on LAN nor on WiFi. It seems to be in a perpertual boot loop.

Ping (on the wired interface IP) shows “Request timeout” until it works briefly for a few seconds, then “Request timeout” again as the RPi reboots again. If I manage to enter the web interface during those 10 seconds or so, I see a “RoPieeee is initializing” screen. The RPi never gets an IP address on the wireless interface.

The WiFi network is a 2.4ghz 802.11n, ch 11, 20mhz, AES, WPA2-Personal, protected managed frames disabled.

The RPi has served me as a wired endpoint for a long time, but now due to changes in living conditions I cannot use Ethernet except for initial setup.

Thanks for any help!

2

AFAIK in this case RoPieee does not require (nor request) a reboot.

I really wondering if that’s the case. Did you had ‘auto reboot’ enabled?

Anyways, when WiFi is enabled, you can reach your RoPieee unit by adding ‘-wired’ to the hostname.

So, suppose your device name is set to ‘myropieee’, then the following applies with wifi enabled and working:

ping myropieee.local (pings the wireless interface)

ping myropieee-wired (pings the wired interface)

This means that you should be able to contact the RoPieee unit over wired lan by using this last one also in your browser:

http://myropieee-wired

If that’s the case you should be able to send me feedback.

3

Thank you so much for the quick response!

I just tried it but the -wired trick doesn’t make a difference - since a) I tried already accessing the web UI via IP, and b) ping clearly shows the wired interface as down except during those few seconds.

New info: In the above I used a short (6 chars) incorrect password. I tried reproducing it again, and when I used a longer (9 chars) incorrect password, I get the same loop as with the correct password. So it’s not about correct vs incorrect, it seems that any attempt to connect to a wifi network causes the issue.

The loop pattern is, with 1 ping/sec:
Request timeout (30-60 pings)
Ping successful (2 pings)
Request timeout (70-100 pings)
Ping successful (7-12 pings)
… repeat

Edit: No auto-reboot, this is with 100% default settings. And yes, Configure is enough to trigger the issue, reboot is not required.

4

Keep in mind: your router will give 2 IP addresses: one for the WiFi, one for the cable. And as RoPieee prefers WiFi in this case, your default go to is over the WiFi interface.

So I’m not sure that you’re pinging the wired interface - I think you’re pinging the wireless interface…

You should be able to reach the device over the wired interface: make sure you use the correct IP address when trying this…

I really would love to get feedback of this case.

5

I’m 100% sure that I’m pinging the wired interface, since I mapped the MAC of the wired interface to a static IP in my router, and I’m pinging that IP. I’m not using hostnames at all.

6

Hmmmmm…

Do you think you can ‘make it’ in the short time to disable wifi in the web interface?
Because looking at that ping pattern it certainly looks indeed as if the unit is rebooting. Which is something that you should be able to also see in the LED pattern…

7

I can’t do anything in the short time becase I just get redirected to the “initializing…” screen.

Later tonight I will open up the case to check the LED behavior. I will also try setting up with a hotspot on my phone to see if it that works. Is there a way to get debug logs (e.g. custom debug image)?

I now tried a neighbor’s WiFi SSID (with a longer incorrect password) and I get the same behavior. So it seems there is nothing specific to my WiFi network that causes this.

8

And it ‘stays’ there? As in: no change whatsoever?

9

What you can do is start from scratch (if you can’t disable wireless) and do the same, except rebooting. And just send me feedback directly after configuring wifi.

10

I tested a mobile hotspot via my mobile phone, the behavior is the same. But I noticed that when I turn off the hotspot (or if connecting to the regular router, if I turn off the radio for that WiFi band), the RPi comes back to life!

And it ‘stays’ there? As in: no change whatsoever?

Yes, because the connection between the browser and the RPi gets broken, so if I refresh I get an error message. And if I do nothing it just stays there.

What you can do is start from scratch (if you can’t disable wireless) and do the same, except rebooting. And just send me feedback directly after configuring wifi.

Even when I don’t reboot, just pressing Configure triggers the problem. I cannot use the web UI after pressing the Configure button.

I sent a feedback immediately before pressing the Configure button: a085d6ca3745fdec
Then I pressed Configure and it was inaccessible.
Then I turned off the WiFi radio on the router, and the RPi came back. I sent another feedback before changing any settings: 100c3350c513135c
Then I enabled the radio again, and the RPi became inaccessible again.
Since I had the interface already open I was able to navigate to Advanced in the very short time it was working and tried sending another feedback, but it’s been stuck in “gathering info”…

On the router I can see the LAN port indicator go on and off. It’s like the RPi is restarting its network service in a loop, or something.

11

Ok, thanks for your extensive feedback!

What I see is that you try to connect to a WPA3 only network: that won’t work and is not supported on the Pi. So it falls back to (at least tries to) WPA2.

Now, here’s the weird thing: first of all that should not reboot the system (but explains why I did not hear more of this), secondly I don’t get why it let you scan for a WPA3 only network at all.

Tomorrow I’ll do some testing on a WPA3 only test network myself to see if I can reproduce this (which sounds very strange to me). Is there any way that you can test it with a WPA2/WPA3 network?

thanks

12

Crazy, I thought this is a WPA2-only network, or at least it is according to the ASUS router settings. I will investigate. Thanks for looking into it!

13

Yeah, it’s indeed crazy. Because I did a quick check this morning, and I’m sure that I’m not able to even scan for a WPA3 only network (using the onboard WiFi). So I’m not convinced what the logs are saying…

[edit]
Ok, looked further into your loggings, and indeed it’s a WPA2 network. So that was a false alarm :wink:

Anyways, everything seems ok. I need to think how we can debug this further, because I’m really interested in getting this sorted out…

14

So are you saying that you can run configure, and if you then disable your radio it will come back? Without rebooting? Because that feedback I’m very interested in.

15

Out of curiosity, is there a way I can see any logs myself?

I will play around with my WiFi settings to see if I can find a combination that works.

16

| So are you saying that you can run configure, and if you then disable your radio it will come back? Without rebooting? Because that feedback I’m very interested in.

Yes that’s what I’m saying. :sweat_smile:

I did more playing around. If I modify my WiFi settings to one that it likes, WiFi works - it gets an IP, I can connect, access the web UI thorugh it, etc.

If I then change the settings, to different settings that it likes, it loses the connection, and will sometimes find it back automatically after a while, or sometimes needs me to reboot or disable/reenable/reconfigure wireless in the settings, and will then find it again.

But I change the settings to something that it doesn’t like, it either makes itself accessible on Ethernet, or it goes into a loop without possiblity of recovery - until, that is, I turn off the radio on the router.

I’m now trying to determine which WiFi setting(s) are causing it to not connect. I’m configured by 2.4 channel to be as compatible as possible.

1 Like
17

After a lot of trial and error I determined that the WiFi channel was the only incompatible setting. I had my 2.4ghz on ch 11.

The RPi works on channels 7, 8, 9, 10, but not on 1, 6, 11. The rest I didn’t try.

So I started from a fresh flash, set my router to ch 11, configured WiFi on the RPi, got into the loop, then switched the router to ch 10, and the RPi came back. I sent feedback cec568056e4d4156

I hope that is helpful. I’m in Germany. I did try setting my timezone to Europe/Berlin, with no change in behavior.

I found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/libreELEC/comments/hap588/rpi4_cannot_connect_to_wifi_except_it_is_on/

Like the person from that thread, I do have the aluminum FLIRC case. So I removed that, and the RPi finally works on ch 11.

I guess I will be buying a USB WiFi dongle off of Amazon, but in the meantime I’m happy to help you debug anything you need.

18

This remains a mystery. I mean, the issue with the channel configuration I can understand. But what I do not understand is the behavior when it is not able to setup a wireless connection: it should just ‘fallback’ to the wired connection.

19

But still: is it possible to get me feedback when you configure the wifi (without rebooting), it get’s stuck, you disable the radio, it comes back on again, and you send me that feedback? Without rebooting? So I have the ‘configure’ step in the feedback? :folded_hands:

20

But still: is it possible to get me feedback when you configure the wifi (without rebooting), it get’s stuck, you disable the radio, it comes back on again, and you send me that feedback? Without rebooting? So I have the ‘configure’ step in the feedback? :folded_hands:

Yes, I already did, see above - cec568056e4d4156