NanoPiNeoAir WiFi Not Recognized

[rlsten]

Hi,

I just got a NanoPi Neo Air, and I've tried both legacy jessie and ubuntu, as well as the nightly build, and with all three I have been unable to find the onboard wifi. When I run iwconfig, there is no sign of a wifi module; when I try nmtui there is nothing there to activate. 

 

lsmod shows the following:

 

Module                  Size  Used by
evdev                   9979  1
sun8i_codec_analog     13766  0
snd_soc_core          115473  1 sun8i_codec_analog
snd_pcm_dmaengine       4221  1 snd_soc_core
snd_pcm                70145  2 snd_pcm_dmaengine,snd_soc_core
sun8i_ths               3134  0
gpio_keys               8517  0
uio_pdrv_genirq         3354  0
cpufreq_dt              3522  0
uio                     8012  1 uio_pdrv_genirq
thermal_sys            43232  2 cpufreq_dt,sun8i_ths
g_serial                3737  0
libcomposite           34692  1 g_serial
brcmfmac              165505  0
brcmutil                6270  1 brcmfmac
cfg80211              192770  1 brcmfmac
rfkill                 10928  2 cfg80211

Is one of these the WiFi module? 

 

ifup wlan0 reported the following

root@nanopiair:~# ifup wlan0
wlan0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; No such device.
Error for wireless request "Set Power Management" (8B2C) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; No such device.
wpa_supplicant: cannot read contents of /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
run-parts: /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/wpasupplicant exited with return code 1
Failed to bring up wlan0.

 

WiFi works fine with the FA distribution from https://www.mediafire.com/folder/sr5d0qpz774cs/NanoPi-NEO_Air#oc15bwqbuxgxe.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Thanks very much.

[Bubba]

brcmfmac

 

https://linux-sunxi.org/FriendlyARM_NanoPi_NEO#WiFi

[Igor]

Both kernels and especially last beta image from today works perfectly fine.

 

wlan0 device is controlled by network manager: nmtui-connect, select your SSID, type password and you are ready to go.

[rlsten]

Thanks for your replies. 

 

The problem is the system is not recognizing the wifi adapter at all. When I try nmtui there is no adapter shown. I cannot find wlan0.

 

I tried the latest beta image Armbian_5.27.170408_Nanopiair_Ubuntu_xenial_dev_4.10.3.img as it is, and I copied the drivers from https://linux-sunxi.org/FriendlyARM_NanoPi_NEO#Wi to /lib/firmware/brcm, but I am still unable to see a wifi device. 

 

I have the same problem with DietPi, but not with the FriendlyArm distribution nanopi-air-eflasher-sd8g-20170220.img.

 

Any ideas what could be wrong?

 

 

[Igor]

4 hours ago, rlsten said:

Any ideas what could be wrong?

None without seeing logs first. Type armbianmonitor -u

 

It's possible that Friendly arm has new version of Air PCB / wifi chip and some adjustment to driver is needed? Can't tell without investigating and talking to FriendlyARM. Perhaps somebody else has more information on the issue?
 

Legacy kernel: FriendlyARM uses their own 3.4 kernel , which we took and add 149 patches which fix waste amount of problems. There is nothing in their Github history regarding different WiFi or board settings. BTW: Dietpi is not different in term of hardware support since they are using our kernel repository for Allwinner boards and don't have own development. Bugs here are bugs there and only we fix them eventually.

 

Mainline kernel. Nightly builds are from "mainline" development branch and kernel is not done. But it works fine on my AIR board out of the box - compare numbers on PCB.

 

It's also possible that your power supply simply does not provide enough power. I use such power supply:

[rlsten]

Thanks very much for the info. I am attaching armhwinfo.log. 

 

The wifi module is labeled as follows:

 

AP6212A

W3112005

1706

 

I think the board is V2, if the version number is located above "NanoPi Neo Air" under the eMMC.

 

Hope this helps figure out what is going on.

 

armhwinfo.zip