Fixed but for info - unable to connect to WIFI / Balena Cloud

[TellinStories]

Just in case anyone else has the same problem, I couldn't get this to work - it just wouldn't show as a device in Balena Cloud. I worked out that it wasn't connecting to my router. Firstly I made sure my router was using 2.4Ghz as the Pi Zero can't connect to 5 Ghz, however it still didn't work. I eventually found out that it is because my router SSID contains a special character - I was able to go into the files on the SD card and manually enter my SSID and this fixed it.

Anyway, working now and love it! Thanks!

[chrisys]

Hey @TellinStories thanks for highlighting this and glad you enjoyed the project. I'll incorporate a note into the docs when I get a minute.

[chrisys]

@TellinStories can you confirm what the special character was so I can attempt to reproduce this please? Also the steps and files you edited to correct the issue? It sounds like something that should be fixed rather than just documented, so with this detail I can look into that.

[TellinStories]

It is “&”Sent from my iPhoneOn 13 Jun 2025, at 10:16, Chris Crocker-White ***@***.***> wrote:chrisys left a comment (chrisys/train-departure-display#135) @TellinStories can you confirm what the special character was so I can attempt to reproduce this please? —Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[chrisys]

@TellinStories thanks - and did you edit the balena-wifi-01 file in system-connections? What change did you make?

[TellinStories]

Hi Chris Sorry for the delay, I couldn't quite remember what I'd changed so flashed a new SD card to try again and refresh my memory! Yes it was the balena-wife-01 file, I remember it was nice and easy because it was a text file. My SSID is "J&J" and in the file it stated: [wifi] hidden=true mode=infrastructure ssid= J So I just manually changed ssid to J&J and it worked. Thanks

…

On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 at 11:15, Chris Crocker-White ***@***.***> wrote: *chrisys* left a comment (chrisys/train-departure-display#135) <#135 (comment)> @TellinStories <https://github.com/TellinStories> thanks - and did you edit the balena-wifi-01 file in system-connections? What change did you make? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#135 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BOAK75L36CVKXNBTDHQCMCT3DKQDZAVCNFSM6AAAAAB6KMCHEWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDSNRZHA2DSOBVG4> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[chrisys]

Thanks for the extra detail @TellinStories! I have tried to replicate this many times now but have been unable to which is really strange. I can't what could be different on my end, so I'll leave this open for now in case someone else encounters the same problem.