WiFi issues on Pinephone (Braveheart)

linsek

Hi all,

Just wanted to say quick I'm excited about the work you guys are doing here. I've been working in embedded Linux professionally for a long time. I'd love to see efforts like this succeed and get Linux into mainstream mobile devices.

With that said, I wanted to contribute in some way and decided to pick up a PinePhone Braveheart edition. I was able to get UT (I believe build #217 from the github) running in pretty short order on an SD card, but am having issues with the WiFi right off the bat. I'm trying to troubleshoot, but since I have no method to remote into the device with WiFi down, it's been difficult just using the terminal and pre-installed tools.

I was able to connect to my home network fine on initial startup, but then the connection dropped (unsure why) and I've been unable to reconnect even with system reboots. dmesg is reporting the following (shorted because I'm manually typing them up):

init: ubuntu-location-service main process (1695) killed by SEGV signal
init: ubuntu-location-service main process ended, respawning
init: failsafe main process (1886) killed by TERM signal
(ubuntu-location-service messages repeat for several cycles)
...
init: ubuntu-location-service respawning too fast, stopped
init: system-watchdog main process (PID) terminated with status 1
init: isc-dhcp-server main process (PID) terminated with status 1
init: isc-dhcp-server main process ended, respawning
(isc-dhcp-server messages repeat for several cycles)
...
systemd-logind[1873]: Failed to start user service, ignoring: Unknown unit: user@32011.service
(isc-dhcp-server messages continue. no new information, just terminating/respawning)
...
(bunch of i2s messages here discussing channels, period, sample rate, and parent clock and divisors)
(GSM modem enumerations on /dev/ttyUSB1-3 nodes)
systemd-timedated[3504]: Assertion 'path' failed at ../src/basic/path-util.c:354, function path_startswith(). Aborting
vcc5v0: disabling

ifconfig -a shows the wlan0 interface with a MAC address, but no IP (makes sense based on systemd messages on startup)

Two questions:Hi all,

Just wanted to say quick I'm excited about the work you guys are doing here. I've been working in embedded Linux professionally for a long time. I'd love to see efforts like this succeed and get Linux into mainstream mobile devices.

With that said, I wanted to contribute and decided to pick up a PinePhone Braveheart edition. I was able to get UT (I believe build #217 from the github) running in pretty short order on an SD card, but am having issues with the WiFi. I'm trying to troubleshoot, but since I have no method to remote into the device with WiFi down, it's been difficult just using the terminal and pre-installed tools.

I was able to connect to my home network fine on initial startup, but then the connection just dropped and I've been unable to reconnect even with system reboots. dmesg is reporting the following issues (shorted because I'm manually typing them up):

init: ubuntu-location-service main process (1695) killed by SEGV signal
init: ubuntu-location-service main process ended, respawning
init: failsafe main process (1886) killed by TERM signal
(ubuntu-location-service messages repeat for several cycles)
...
init: ubuntu-location-service respawning too fast, stopped
init: system-watchdog main process (PID) terminated with status 1
init: isc-dhcp-server main process (PID) terminated with status 1
init: isc-dhcp-server main process ended, respawning
(isc-dhcp-server messages repeat for several cycles)
...
systemd-logind[1873]: Failed to start user service, ignoring: Unknown unit: user@32011.service
(isc-dhcp-server messages continue. no new information, just terminating/respawning)
...
(bunch of i2s messages here discussing channels, period, sample rate, and parent clock and divisors)
(GSM modem enumerations on /dev/ttyUSB1-3 nodes)
systemd-timedated[3504]: Assertion 'path' failed at ../src/basic/path-util.c:354, function path_startswith(). Aborting
vcc5v0: disabling

ifconfig -a shows the wlan0 interface with a MAC address.

Is there any way to get into the device through a terminal outside of ssh since I don't have network connectivity? Any ideas on troubleshooting the WiFi issues further?

Thanks

Is there any way to get into the device through a terminal outside of ssh since I don't have network connectivity?
Any ideas on troubleshooting the WiFi issues further?

Thanks

flohack

Best would be you file a bug there or actually check if its not already listed: https://gitlab.com/ubports/community-ports/pinephone/issues
The forum is a great place to discuss but a bad place for issue tracking

AppLee

@linsek It's a known issue from the driver.

To answer your questions :
1- Yes it's possible using the jack as a console. You can find more information on Pine64's wiki
2- Flo just beat me on this

dieharddan

From a user on pine64 forum:

My wifi suddenly stopped working after sometime, but i got wifi working again after entering the folowing comments:

Open the terminal app and enter:

sudo nmcli radio wifi off
sudo nmcli radio wifi on
sudo reboot now

The pinephone reboots and I can connect with wifi again.

linsek

@dieharddan Confirm this works, but the connection only lasts a few minutes before dropping again and having to reboot again.

linsek

@AppLee Got it. Ordered myself a 3.5mm breakout from Amazon. Thanks for the tip.

dieharddan

@linsek mine has been rock solid since surprisingly

AppLee

@dieharddan
I never had much trouble with the wifi so far.
At worst I had to reboot once or twice.

The problem seem hard to analyse it may have something to do with the hotspot used.

Giiba

I got my pinephone today and had this very problem; the wifi worked for a couple of mins (not quite long enough to set up a hidded ssid) then died. It had the halmarks of hardware defect.

But after finding this thread and poking around with 'nmcli' I have found a solution that doesn't require reboot just some simple command line stuff.

I found if I entered:

$ nmcli r

I got something like: (I couldn't get a screenshot... a different bug)

WIFI-HW  WIFI     WWAN-HW  WWAN
enabled  off      enabled  enabled

Which obviously seemed wrong, a bit more poking with the 'help' function of nmcli and I found I could switch 'WIFI' to enabled by:

$ nmcli r wifi on

and now the the output of 'nmcli r' is:

WIFI-HW  WIFI     WWAN-HW  WWAN
enabled  enabled  enabled  enabled

Then wifi worked fine, has persisted through reboots, and is still fine a few hours later. What remains unexplained is why wifi worked (I got a list of visible networks) before failing.

falsifian

@Giiba said in WiFi issues on Pinephone (Braveheart):
...

I found if I entered:
$ nmcli r
I got something like: (I couldn't get a screenshot... a different bug)
WIFI-HW  WIFI     WWAN-HW  WWAN
enabled  off      enabled  enabled
Which obviously seemed wrong, a bit more poking with the 'help' function of nmcli and I found I could switch 'WIFI' to enabled by:
$ nmcli r wifi on
and now the the output of 'nmcli r' is:
WIFI-HW  WIFI     WWAN-HW  WWAN
enabled  enabled  enabled  enabled
Then wifi worked fine, has persisted through reboots, and is still fine a few hours later. What remains unexplained is why wifi worked (I got a list of visible networks) before failing.

Similar behaviour here.

WiFi stopped working the first time I tried to connect to a network with WPA Enterprise security, and didn't work from then on, even when I restarted. Not sure if the WPA Enterprise part is a coincidence.

I saw "disabled" where your post shows "off" in the output of nmcli r. nmcli r wifi on got it working again. Thanks!