WiFi repeater not working on fresh install

[francescoforcellini]

Hi, I had everything working on a raspberry pi zero 2 with raspbian 64 bit with a second wifi dongle, I did on the same hardware a fresh install of the 32bit version and now, after I tried so many times top reinstall everything, I still cannot make it to work and I the same problem occurs every time. The hotspot circle is flickering and in case I make it to have the hotspot working, I can't connect from other devices and I need to start again with the install. I followed the quick install steps, then went to the faq for wifi repeater. The problem is that I don't have the wlan1 in the raw output. So even if I change the metric, nothing really happens...
In the networking page,
This is what I get in the raw output:

default via 192.168.1.1 dev wlan0 proto dhcp src 192.168.1.192 metric 600
192.168.1.0/24 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.192 metric 600

and in the current settings:

2: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether d8:3a:dd:84:c6:ef brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.1.192/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global dynamic noprefixroute wlan0
       valid_lft 85743sec preferred_lft 85743sec
    inet6 fe80::112e:1194:9fe0:da61/64 scope link noprefixroute
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

3: wlan1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 90:de:80:0b:fa:6f brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

This is what I get from log if I start the dnsmasq:

May  4 23:24:34 dnsmasq[2687]: started, version 2.90 cachesize 150
May  4 23:24:34 dnsmasq[2687]: compile time options: IPv6 GNU-getopt DBus no-UBus i18n IDN2 DHCP DHCPv6 no-Lua TFTP conntrack ipset nftset auth cryptohash DNSSEC loop-detect inotify dumpfile
May  4 23:24:34 dnsmasq[2687]: warning: interface wlan1 does not currently exist
May  4 23:24:34 dnsmasq-dhcp[2687]: DHCP, IP range 10.9.141.50 -- 10.9.141.254, lease time 12h
May  4 23:24:34 dnsmasq-dhcp[2687]: DHCP, IP range 10.3.141.50 -- 10.3.141.254, lease time 12h
May  4 23:24:34 dnsmasq[2687]: no servers found in /etc/resolv.conf, will retry
May  4 23:24:34 dnsmasq[2687]: read /etc/hosts - 7 names

This is what I get from log if I start the hotspot:

wlan0: interface state ENABLED->DISABLED
wlan0: AP-DISABLED 
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING 
nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan0 disabled_11b_rates=0
wlan0: interface state UNINITIALIZED->COUNTRY_UPDATE
wlan0: interface state COUNTRY_UPDATE->ENABLED
wlan0: AP-ENABLED 

I tried to see if the drivers of the dongle are ok and if the raspberry recognize it and everything seems ok...
Help!and thank you in advance...

[billz]

This has been discussed many times. Use the search function

[francescoforcellini]

Ok, thank you

[francescoforcellini]

Sorry, I've been reading many threads on the q&a and tried to find related content, the only thing that I found that could be related it's trying to install without inserting the wifi credentials from the image burner, which makes the wiki hotspot work but then I can't access the configuration page from any ip address... The other thing that I found it's to change the dongle, but the dongle was working before on this pi, and it's working on another pi that has the same dongle... I'm sure I'm missing something but I can't figure out what... not sure now what It could be, I did try and Installed dozens of times...

[billz]

Here's a clue: dnsmasq[2687]: warning: interface wlan1 does not currently exist.

There are many possible reasons for this, including:

1. Missing or incorrect drivers
2. The system hasn’t assigned a name to the device yet (or has renamed it)
3. Insufficient power to the adapter

This has been stated many times before: dongles (or their drivers) are the cause of 99% of these issues. You can perform a self-diagnosis with the following (please do NOT post the output):

ip link show wlan1
iw dev
dmesg | grep wlan1
dmesg | grep usb

This can show if the device failed to initialize or was renamed. As a last resort, try manually bringing it up:

sudo ip link set wlan1 up

you're better off with a different adapter. "it worked before" is no guarantee it's working now.
good luck.

[francescoforcellini]

Ok, thank you so much!

[francescoforcellini]

Posting again just because maybe could be useful to someone. My dongle is supported (Zibo-6467115[1][4] (nano)) but I also tried with e second one, same model(just in case the first one was damaged), but got the same problem (maybe the problem was the adaptor usb to mini usb?). So I just though of trying the last thing, going back to 64bit as I had and was working. With the 64 bit the wlan1 works correctly. Still could not make it to change the metric (even if changed on raspap DHCP server page, or manually modifying /etc/dhcpcd.conf, wlan0 metric gets overwritten making it impossible to use the hotspot). At the end, after all this time and so many trials, I gave up, and now I'm using it with this 64 bit version, using just wlan0 with WiFi client AP mode. It may not be the best solution, but at least it's working...

[billz]

@francescoforcellini apologies for the frustrations, I'm able to reproduce the behavior you mention here. Indeed, the wlan0 metric value isn't preserved in the dhcpcd.conf when saving settings from the Hotspot UI. I'll create a new issue and credit you for reporting it. A fix is already in progress.

[billz]

Issue report #1854 and pull request #1853. This fix will be available in the next general release.

[francescoforcellini]

Hi Bill, thank you for the support! I have to say that it's working really good with WiFi client AP mode.

[billz]

@francescoforcellini as a small token of gratitude, I'm happy to give you a complimentary upgrade to Insiders, if you like. Just say the word :)

[billz]

Yes, AP-STA mode works reasonably well! It can be somewhat tricky to configure and doesn't perform as well as a "real" repeater. But hopefully with this fix you'll be able to use a second adapter.

[francescoforcellini]

Thank you Bill