2019-06-16 23:00:08 (edited by cw 2019-06-16 23:08:52)

Figure that this is most likely the best place to ask this. I have a pi 0w that I am using for a project. The main difficulty I am having is that it appears  to not be staying on the wifi connection. I am looking for ideas to try. Maybe a good Ethernet adapter to try would be helpful. Then again, a micro USB to USB A connecter would be handy in this case. This is one of those times where being blind is not helpful at all. Anyway, I am looking for suggestions. I saw online that sometimes people hook these into screens and keyboards to run commands from the pi itself to diagnose the problem, but that may not work seeing that I do not have a screen reader installed for the command line among other reasons.
edit
Here is the pi image I am useing. Figure I will link to it seeing that most on here is most likely not useing the image I am using, and it could make a difference. Here is the home page for more info. Could link to the nice user guide that someone wrote if needed.

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
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2019-06-17 00:50:28 (edited by magurp244 2019-06-17 00:52:39)

The first question that comes to mind is if the problem is consistent across other wifi routers, if so then the problem could be with the board or the software. The software side is a bit easier to troubleshoot, you can follow [this] guide and flash a standard raspbian build and try to connect via SSH over wifi, possibly also trying it with different micro SD cards. If that still causes problems, and the connections still equally flaky on other wifi routers, then its likely the raspi board itself, though you could try double checking it isn't something like interference or a weak signal with a board you know works to see if the problems consistent.

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2019-06-17 04:49:08

Thanks for that bit of info. Did also try it with my phone. The wifi seemed flaky there too. Not to sure if flaky in that case works. Phone saids it is connected, but I get no return on my pings. Pinged the host name of the pi seeing that I do not always know the IP. Knowing of a good accessible IP scanner may be of use there. Anyway, I do not have a second one laying about at this time, but the price is cheep enough I could order another one. There is some odd things about it though. If I leave it off for a few days, I do seem to get a longer time out of it before it disappears than if I try to use it often every day. My IPhone will say that the pi is connected, but even if the IPhone thinks it is connected, it does not always answer to pings and incoming connections. It is as if the pi drops the connection, but does not tell the IPhone that it drops the connection. I did turn off the wifi saving thing that the pi has. So, it looks like maybe flashing another image to see if that fixes it. I tried two different memory cards in it using the image I linked to above. So, this looks like imageing with  the info you provided magurp to see if that makes a difference or buying a new pi. Now, at this time, I need some sleep. So, I will check back later for more info if any more is forth coming.

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
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2019-06-18 09:14:52

type iwconfig in the console
what is your power management set too? is it on or off? it might be on and i think this is the source of your issue.

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2019-06-18 18:28:59

Thanks for that command. It is off, but that is a common enough problem that it was  one of the first commands given to me in another place I asked about this problem. I do find that having to leave it off for a few days before I can use over an hour kind of odd. The steps I was given for fixing the problem you brought is the following. I think you may know what they are...

If you lose WIFI after a period of inactivity it is due
to the power-saving-mode of the WiFi-chipset is set to on.
To get rid of this problem, perform the following steps:
* First login to your Pi by ssh.
* verify current setting: by typing:
iw wlan0 get power_save
* This shows, that power-saving is curently on or off.
* If off you are done. If on do the following.
* make the root-partition writeable:
sudo mount -o remount,rw /
* edit /etc/network/interfaces:
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
* scroll down to the section wlan0 (iface wlan0) after the line
* wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
* insert the following line:
wireless-power off
* Repeat this step for wlan1
* Save the file and reboot!
sudo reboot
* Connect by ssh again, and recheck power-saving:
iw wlan0 get power_save
* Now it should be off. If so you are done.

That may be just for the image I am using. Also did what I could from this. Almost as it might be over heating, but from every thing I can tell, the hottest it got was 105F. Do not know if this makes any difference, the curnal is 4.9.35 I am running version 8 of the raspian OS. Forgot the name. I am using v3.417 of the image.

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
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