Wifi Dongle not remembering password

topguy7899 · July 12, 2017 at 6:31 AM

Hey Guys

I'm trying to get my PI3 to log on to my wifi through a wifi dongle automatically.

I'm using Libreelec as the OS

I have black listed the onboard wifi.

And the wifi dongle works great, however the problem is that it doesn't remember the password and I have to enter it every time I

turn on the Pi

I'm familiar using SSH to access the PI but I'm unsure of what file to edit or create?

Any help is appreciated.

**nickr** · July 12, 2017 at 8:08 AM Official Post

There should be relevant files under ~/.cache/connman

Under that directory should be a directory named like wifi_[long hex number]_managed_psk

Under there should be a file named "settings"

**chewitt** · July 12, 2017 at 4:58 PM Official Post

btw, connman stores SSID and password info base64 encoded

topguy7899 · July 13, 2017 at 12:52 AM

Hey guys thanks for the replys.

So will i need to edit a file in the connman directory or create a new one?

I found this page :

External Content gist.github.com

Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.

Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

Which seems to be on the money but is obviously a guide for open elec not the libre elec im using.?

topguy7899 · July 13, 2017 at 10:09 AM

Hey any ideas how to access the.cache directory? It keeps saying permission denied?

LibreELEC:~ # /storage/.cache

-sh: /storage/.cache: Permission denied

??

**Klojum** · July 13, 2017 at 11:15 AM Official Post

/storage/.cache is a directory, not a command.

topguy7899 · July 13, 2017 at 11:52 AM

Yep i understand that now thanks Klojum

**lrusak** · July 13, 2017 at 6:54 PM Official Post

Did you disable the on board wifi using the correct dtoverlay in config.txt??

topguy7899 · July 14, 2017 at 12:32 PM

lrusak no i just black listed the wifi, It didnt seem to change anything when I did that however, so perhaps if I did it as your saying that would be different.

Any advice on how to do that?

After accessing /storage/.cache there are dozens of directories there all with different hex numbers looking litke this :

Code

wifi_0013ef20018a_564944454f54524f4e32313838_managed_psk

, but the setting files of these directories are

all the same, they are all storing the wifi details, ssid password etc.

So it seems every time I reboot the wifi is assigned new set of numbers for the fist lot Ie:

wifi_00e04ccfc2b4

Every time I reboot this number is changed there for the settings file created by connman will not execute!

Any ideas?

topguy7899 · July 14, 2017 at 12:33 PM

chewitt & nickr

Any thoughts on the above post would be great, thanks

**chewitt** · July 14, 2017 at 1:45 PM Official Post

please run "journalctl -b 0 --no-pager | paste" and share the URL please, we'd like to see details of the device/driver being used

**chewitt** · July 19, 2017 at 1:40 PM Official Post

Code

RTL871X: ERROR invalid mac addr:00:00:00:00:00:00, assign random MAC

The connection manager (connman) caches configurations in a structured format keyed on the connection type and MAC of the interface so ^ that's the problem. It doesn't forget.. it's just (correctly) presented with a new randomly generated MAC on each boot.

Code

echo "options 8812au rtm_initmac=00:e0:4c:37:67:35" > /storage/.config/modprobe.d/8812au.conf
or
echo "options 8812au mac_addr=00:e0:4c:37:67:35" > /storage/.config/modprobe.d/8812au.conf

^ this is a complete guess based on 60 seconds of non-specific Googling, so I make no guarantees it will work. It is technically possible to change the MAC via ethtool commands, but really it should be done at driver load time which is what we're trying to achieve.

I don't have the code knowledge to spot if this is an issue with the driver code or not, but the lack of general comments in Google search makes me suspect it's a manufacturing issue where a blank/null MAC address is set in the device. You can argue whether that's a fault as it wouldn't cause an issue in Win/macOS, but it does here. It probably indicates a cheap device where the manufacturer hasn't been assigned unique hardware ID ranges for their devices.

topguy7899 · July 20, 2017 at 3:35 AM

Ok yes that defiantly makes sense.

So basically it's on me for buying a $8 dongle from eBay. 😐🔫

I'll try these codes as suggested and report back. Thanks

topguy7899 · July 21, 2017 at 10:09 AM

No luck with these im affraid

**mglae** · July 21, 2017 at 4:55 PM

According to modinfo the option name is rtw_initmac