Orange Pi Zero 512 MB Wifi Connection Problem

[algoritmauzmani]

Orange Pi Zero 512 MB has a serious wifi problem. After i connect the wifi network, i loose connection and i can't access my zero until i connect with ethernet cable. Interestingly, after i connect ethernet cable, wifi reconnects.

i set up my wifi connection with nmtui. Auto connect enabled. I really need to solve this wifi issue. In my thinking there two options, which one is better i don't know.

 

1 st option: I have to buy wifi adaptor, but i don't know will it solve the problem. (and probably i am going to have driver problem)

 

2nd option: I am going to write a new thread with python. This code will check wifi connection every 10 seconds, if wifi connection loses, it will try reconnect. But i am not sure with this solution.

 

Is there anybody who use wifi connection feature of orange pi zero continuously? I really need to use wifi connection. I don't want to change my board.

[Werner]

Providing logs with 

armbianmonitor -u

 helps with troubleshooting and significantly raises chances that issue gets addressed.

[DwarfDecker]

Issue is present in both Focal and Buster, wlan0 work with downloader image and become faulty after applying recent update ( probably new kernel)

I've found that Wifi driver fail to start due to missing chipset firmware binaries in /lib/firmware/xr819

 

dmesg trace

[   70.648156] xradio ERR: FWIO: can't load sdd file xr819/sdd_xr819.bin.
[   70.648185] xradio ERR: BH: bh thread exiting
 

However downloading firmware from https://github.com/armbian/firmware/tree/master/xr819 doesn't fix the issue, it seem that something is broken into kernel ( kernal side wifi driver of fwio loader? I don't know it yet)

 

 

 

Board info :

 

  ___  ____  _   _____              
 / _ \|  _ \(_) |__  /___ _ __ ___  
| | | | |_) | |   / // _ \ '__/ _ \ 
| |_| |  __/| |  / /|  __/ | | (_) |
 \___/|_|   |_| /____\___|_|  \___/ 
                                    
Welcome to Armbian 20.08.16 Buster with Linux 5.8.16-sunxi

System load:   2%               Up time:       30 min        
Memory usage:  15% of 491M       IP:            192.168.1.253
CPU temp:      10°C               Usage of /:    2% of 58G        

[ General system configuration (beta): armbian-config ]

 

 

[NicoD]

4 hours ago, DwarfDecker said:

I've found that Wifi driver fail to start due to missing chipset firmware binaries in /lib/firmware/xr819

 

This might be fixed by now. Try upgrading again. There was a problem with the firmware packages earlier in the day.

[DwarfDecker]

Thanks

I did tried few week ago to install firmware inaries manually but loading failed at 2nn ou 3rd step

I'll try  the updated frimware package from repos and add comment to thhis post ( either to tell taht it has been fixed , or to add new data about the issue )

 

Note: I may get more time to dig in due to confinement 

[DwarfDecker]

Update of firmware package fixe the issue. Thanks

 

dmesg log is OK

iwlist show expectd API list

[   10.549012] xradio: XR819 device discovered
[   10.649993] cfg80211: failed to load regulatory.db
[   10.772539] xradio: hardware vers. 7.9
[   10.772557] xradio: firmware vers. 8 (WSM), build 43, api 1060, cap 0x0003
[   10.772560] xradio: Config USE_EXTENSIONS
[   10.781416] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel_ht'
 

[TerryW]

Well, I meet this issue too. My device is OPi zero(H2 version) with XR819 wifi chip. My system is Armbian 23.02.2 Bullseye with Linux 5.15.93-sunxi. I find that this armbian seems has some wlan0 driver problem. Cause I find the arp table is some strange. The armbian on OPi zero cann't get correct arp table with Apple devices.

 

For examble, I have one raspberrypi 4B, one macbook pro and the OPi zero connect in same router. These devices are all wifi only connected. After boot the OPi zero, I can ssh to it from Rpi4B, but fail from my mbp. And after both ssh attempt, I login OPi zero to see its arp table, it shows the connection from mbp is <incomplete>, so it never response any net request from mbp. But the arp table has correct ip-mac about Rpi4B, so the ssh from Rpi4B is accessable without any problem, but ssh from mbp shows Operation timed out. 

I also plug another wifi-device in USB, but this cannot solve this problem. When I ssh to my usb-wifi, is still same as before. And the arp table has 2 item about my mbp, one is correct and one is <incomplete> too. It seems so weird...

 

I would like to know if there have some method to disable the XR819 chip or wlan0 permanently, so that i can use a USB wifi chip to connect my wifi, which should be a normal operation on Linux.

[Igor]

52 minutes ago, TerryW said:

I find that this armbian

Armbian doesn't have problems. We didn't design this wireless chip and we didn't write drivers. We already tried to make the best out of this, we already lost months while you didn't even noticed.

 

58 minutes ago, TerryW said:

which should be a normal operation on Linux.

 

Try one of those. Or just switch to kernel 6.1.y where this driver anyway doesn't work (yet).

[TerryW]

On 3/10/2023 at 8:59 PM, Igor said:

Armbian doesn't have problems. We didn't design this wireless chip and we didn't write drivers. We already tried to make the best out of this, we already lost months while you didn't even noticed.

Sorry for my point above. I know the wifi problem is because the manufacturers poor drivers, it's not about armbian absolutly. You guys are doing great work, and I am very grateful for your jobs. 

I will check your advice lately. Thanks a lot!!😀

[TerryW]

Hello everyone, I found a nice way to bypass the native Wi-Fi problems on orange pi zero. You can add the native Wi-Fi chip XR819 into modprobe blakclist to disable it permanently. And then buy a usb wifi adaptor plugs into the USB port to connect to a Wi-Fi network. In this way, you can connect the wifi though the USB adapter rather than native Wi-Fi chip.

Here is how to add the native WiFi Chip driver into blacklist on armbian:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-orangepizero.conf

And this line to file:

blacklist xradio_wlan

Then Run:

sudo update-initramfs -u

And reboot. Now you should connect WiFi though the usb adapter with peace of mind🤠

 

Refer to this link: https://askubuntu.com/a/168045