Unable to Connect Raspberry Pi 4 to WPA3 WiFi and Persist WPA2 Password on LibreELEC 12.0

Luck_Affe · August 2, 2024 at 11:17 PM

Hi everyone,

I'm running the latest LibreELEC 12.0 on a Raspberry Pi 4 and, as the title suggests, I'm having issues connecting to my WiFi with WPA3 configured. I've enabled debug logging on the iwd service, and the only message I received was "Can't use SAE, trying WPA2." Since SAE_OFFLOAD is not a supported feature, I assume I won't be able to get WPA3 working either.

So, I tried logging Kodi into my IoT WiFi network, which still runs on WPA2. However, the password is quite long, and I tried persisting it via SSH.

First, I attempted to save the password using a profile file in /var/lib/iwd, but it did not persist. Then, I tried using the connmanctl agent on command, but I still get prompted for the WiFi password after every reboot. I'm out of ideas on how to make the password persist.

Could anyone please advise me on how to save my WiFi password permanently?

Best regards,

Affe

**chewitt** · August 12, 2024 at 5:43 AM

LE does not use/store profiles for iwd, only for ConnMan in /storage/.cache/connman/ .. but the correct way to store those is to use the connmanctl agent. The only time I've seen issues with passwords not being retained over boot is with WiFi devices that have no persistent MAC; so the kernel auto-generates and assigns a new one on each boot and since ConnMan stores profiles against the MAC, on reboot the MAC changes and there's no store profile and you're forced to configure it afresh. I do also see isses from users trying to use overly-long passwords too, but that's usually a more simple rejection.

Are you using the onboard WiFi of the RPi4 or some cheap USB dongle?. Check the MAC before/after rebooting.

zaphod24 · September 16, 2024 at 3:12 PM

Is there any plan to support WPA3? Even with updated firmware it seems iwd doesn't support this.

Luck_Affe · September 28, 2024 at 4:26 PM

Quote from chewitt

LE does not use/store profiles for iwd, only for ConnMan in /storage/.cache/connman/ .. but the correct way to store those is to use the connmanctl agent. The only time I've seen issues with passwords not being retained over boot is with WiFi devices that have no persistent MAC; so the kernel auto-generates and assigns a new one on each boot and since ConnMan stores profiles against the MAC, on reboot the MAC changes and there's no store profile and you're forced to configure it afresh. I do also see isses from users trying to use overly-long passwords too, but that's usually a more simple rejection.
Are you using the onboard WiFi of the RPi4 or some cheap USB dongle?. Check the MAC before/after rebooting.

just the onboard wifi, does that one auto generate its mac adress?

Luck_Affe · September 28, 2024 at 6:40 PM

i've managed to use connman shortly after i made this post to get it working, but it has been somewhat unstable, sometimes disconnecting, sometimes asking for the password. yesterday it stopped working for good

Quote

[blah]
Name=blah
SSID=blah
Frequency=0
Favorite=true
AutoConnect=true
Modified=2024-02-27T17:32:50Z
Passphrase=blah
IPv4.method=manual
IPv4.netmask_prefixlen=24
IPv4.local_address=blah
IPv4.gateway=blah
IPv6.method=off
IPv6.privacy=prefered
Nameservers=blah;

Display More

connmanctl output without invervention

Quote

connmanctl> services
*AR Wired ethernet_dca632225c66_cable
*A blah blah

neither ssh, the webserver, or any outgoing connection is working via wifi, even if i manually enable it and it tells me AR on the wifi one.

honestly i'm at my wits end, everything worked fine in the previous libreelec versions

Luck_Affe · September 29, 2024 at 9:26 PM

Hi,

I've done a full reset to 12.0.1 and tried again using connmanctl, while wired it worked, after restarting it failed to connect to the wifi and asked me for the password.

It feels totally hopeless getting wifi working in a secure manner.

br.

Affe

**chewitt** · September 30, 2024 at 3:56 AM

The non-trivial suggestion is to self-build an image that uses wpa_supplicant instead of iwd to see if that's the issue. The switch to iwd has overall been successful, but over time there's been a few users whose setups are tripping over edge cases and/or borderline reception and iwd doesn't seem to perform as well in those situations as older wpa_supplicant. We aren't going to be moving back to wpa but we've intentionally left support in the build system for a while to support people doing some a/b testing.

Luck_Affe · October 7, 2024 at 5:33 PM

after tinkering a bit and creating a startup script that auto connects the wifi i've made the following discovery

setup: IP#1 for LAN and IP#2 for wifi

startup + having the LAN cable that i used for the initial setup => wifi works, can connect to IP#1 and IP#2

startup + having the LAN cable disconnected => wifi doesnt work, no connection to IP#2, but the frontend tells me that its connected and the script logs also say that the connection succeeded

Luck_Affe · October 7, 2024 at 5:34 PM

#!/bin/sh

# Wi-Fi service identifier
WIFI_SERVICE=""

# Maximum number of retries
MAX_RETRIES=5

# Initial delay before retrying (in seconds)
DELAY=10

# Function to connect to Wi-Fi with retries
connect_to_wifi() {
local retries=0
local success=0
sleep 10

while [ $retries -lt $MAX_RETRIES ]; do
echo "Attempting to connect to Wi-Fi (try #$((retries + 1)))..." >> /storage/.config/autostart.log 2>&1

# Try to connect to the Wi-Fi service in the background
nohup connmanctl connect "$WIFI_SERVICE" &

# Check if the connection was successful
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "Successfully connected to Wi-Fi." >> /storage/.config/autostart.log 2>&1
success=1
break
else
echo "Failed to connect. Retrying in $DELAY seconds..." >> /storage/.config/autostart.log 2>&1
sleep $DELAY
retries=$((retries + 1))

# Exponential backoff: double the delay with each retry
DELAY=$((DELAY * 2))
fi
done

if [ $success -eq 0 ]; then
echo "Failed to connect to Wi-Fi after $MAX_RETRIES attempts." >> /storage/.config/autostart.log 2>&1
fi
}

# Execute the function to connect to Wi-Fi in the background
connect_to_wifi &

this is my script and this the log output

cat /storage/.config/autostart.log
Attempting to connect to Wi-Fi (try #1)...
Successfully connected to Wi-Fi.
Attempting to connect to Wi-Fi (try #1)...
Successfully connected to Wi-Fi.
Attempting to connect to Wi-Fi (try #1)...
Successfully connected to Wi-Fi.
Attempting to connect to Wi-Fi (try #1)...
Successfully connected to Wi-Fi.

serendrewpity · October 9, 2024 at 3:39 AM

It's because you're testing for 'success' on the return code of 'nohup' rather than 'connmanctl'. Plus, you should be testing if there is a valid 'ipv4' address acquired like this.

This will try to obtain the IP address every 3 seconds for a max of five times.

Shell session

timeout=$(($(date +%s) + 15))
until [ -n "$(ip -4 route get 8.8.8.8 2>/dev/null | awk {'print $7'} | tr -d '\n')" ] || [ $(date +%s) -gt $timeout ]; do sleep 3; done
ip=$(ip -4 route get 8.8.8.8 | awk {'print $7'} | tr -d '\n' 2>/dev/null)
[[ ${#ip} -gt 0 ]] && echo "Connected!"

Luck_Affe · October 19, 2024 at 2:34 PM

so, it seems that using the service template and adapting it a little bit seems to have improved the issue

https://wiki.libreelec.tv/configuration/hidden-wifi

Luck_Affe · October 19, 2024 at 5:13 PM

2h without any wifi disconnects so far, music streaming and ssh sessions seem stable