Wi-Fi issue after BlueOS installation

Blue Robotics Software BlueOS
1

Hello,

I’m working on the AUV that is made from the BlueROV.

Due to the needs of the project, it was necessary to install a 64-bit OS on the Raspberry Pi. Before it was Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit bullseye.
In the end I ran into strange issue with the Wi-Fi connection.

What hardware I have:

  1. Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
  2. Navigator board Rev 5

So, what I did:

  1. I flashed the SD card with Raspberry Pi OS Lite 64-bit bookworm. I used Raspberry Pi Imager, during the installation I added Wi-Fi settings.
  2. I installed the SD card in the Raspberry Pi, everything went well: it connected to the Wi-Fi from my smartphone’s hotspot and I could log in from my laptop using SSH. Some details: RasPi OS uses Network Manager, so in the /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections there is nmconnection file for my Wi-Fi.
  3. I installed BlueOS using the installation script (BlueOS/install at master · bluerobotics/BlueOS · GitHub). The installation went well without any problems. It rebooted at the end.

Problems after installation:

  1. After the reboot the device didn’t connect to the hotspot. I waited a little bit and then I saw BlueOS Wi-Fi network, which is enabled by Avahi (as far as I understand).

  2. I connected to the BlueOS hotspot and checked http://blueos-avahi.local/. Everything seems ok except the Wi-Fi connection.

  3. When I check Wi-Fi icon on the top right, there are no networks.

    no_wi_fi
    no_wi_fi1840×849 127 KB

  4. When I run ‘ip a’ command in the BlueOS terminal I see that wlan0 interface (it seems to be Wi-Fi) is in state DOWN. When I try to turn it on with ‘ip link set dev wlan0 up’ command, nothing changes.

  5. I have manually scanned for the Wi-Fi (sudo iw wlan0 scan | grep -i ssid) and it works! It returned a relevant list of Wi-Fi networks.

After that, I’m totally frustrated with the situation. Please, can someone give me a hint where could be a problem with this setup.

Regards, Sergei

2

Hi @schashni -
Welcome to the forums!

I’m not sure what the issue is here, but I would guess it stems from installing BlueOS manually. Is there any reason you can’t use the 64 bit image flashed directly to your SD card? While it is intended for the pi5, it should work for the pi4 as well… let us know if that approach works!

3

Tony, hello

Thank you very much for your fast reply.

It works!

  1. I flashed the Pi5 image to the SD card.
  2. I turned on the board.
  3. I connected to the BlueOS hotspot and connected to my Wi-Fi.

A few things I noticed:

  1. Let’s say the BlueOS version is “pi5” if it has "BlueOS-raspberry-linux-arm64-v8-bookworm-pi5.zip” file and the version is “non-pi5” if it doesn’t.
  2. When I install the “pi5” version I cannot switch (in the BlueOS GUI) to the “non-pi5” version. In this case, after rebooting BlueOS the system doesn’t see the Navigator board.

Example 1:
1. I installed 1.4.0-beta.11 (pi5 version)
2. Then I swithed to the 1.3.1 (non-pi5 version)
3. After reboot BlueOS does not connect to the Navigator board
Example 2:
1. I installed 1.4.0-beta.11 (pi5 version).
2. I installed 1.4.0-beta.17 (pi5 version).
3. After reboot everything works well

And the oldest pi5 version is 1.4.0-beta.11.
So it looks like I’m a bit limited in which version to use. Initially I wanted to use stable (1.3.1).

But I think we should have no problems with these fresh versions. After all, thank you very much for the help.

Best regards, Sergei

4

Hi @schashni -
You’re correct - stable 1.3.1 is not available for 64bit systems!

It sounds like you got everything working tho! 1.4 beta 18 came out today, and is getting super close to being a release candidate / stable version!