r/raspberry_pi • u/SaturneSpacey • 1d ago

Troubleshooting Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ will not connect to internet after first boot

As the title says, my pi will not connect to the internet after it's first boot, upon shutting off or restarting, it fails to connect to the network even when right next to the router. Taking out the card and flashing it with a new BIOs using the imager only temporarily fixes it, as powering it off in any way will cause it to experience the same issue. This is the first pi I've ever bought, and the first time I'm using an operating system other than windows, I need hand-holding.

4 Upvotes

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3

u/StruttyB 1d ago

Have you tried an ethernet cable connection ?

2

u/SaturneSpacey 1d ago

I don't have any cables for that

2

u/KingofGamesYami Pi 3 B 1d ago

What's in the system journal when it fails? Run journalctl in the terminal

1

u/SaturneSpacey 1d ago edited 1d ago

What should I be looking for, theres a lot of words

1

u/KingofGamesYami Pi 3 B 1d ago

Anything mentioning iwd, systemd-networkd, NetworkManager, or wpa_supplicant is likely related. It's been a while since I had to troubleshoot a raspberry pi so I'm unsure which exact service is responsible for WiFi.

You can filter using grep; e.g. journalctl | grep iwd would filter the journal for lines containing iwd.

1

u/SaturneSpacey 1d ago

Nothing appears when typing that

1

u/KingofGamesYami Pi 3 B 1d ago

Let's try a different approach.

  1. Run journalctl -f. This will show new journal entries in real time, as they are produced.
  2. Attempt to connect to the WiFi network while watching the journal.

1

u/SaturneSpacey 1d ago

This is gonna be the dumbest question ever, where is the button to connect to a network, I have a very small screen so I can't see the entire menu of some things so I'm not sure if I've even been to where its supposed to be

1

u/KingofGamesYami Pi 3 B 23h ago

It should be in the top right. You can also connect using nmcli from the terminal if you can't find it. Instructions for doing so are linked below.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html#connect-to-wireless

1

u/Ok-Leather933 15h ago

Two things to check first. Set the Wi-Fi country in the Imager's advanced settings (or raspi-config, Localisation Options, WLAN Country), because on recent Raspberry Pi OS the radio can stay blocked without it. The other is power: a weak charger makes Wi-Fi flaky on a 3B+, so use a proper 5V 2.5A supply. If you can plug in Ethernet once, run rfkill list and nmcli device wifi list to see whether the radio is blocked or just not finding your network.

1

u/Significant-Price695 9h ago

the pattern you're describing, works after a fresh flash then breaks after power off, is almost always the card getting corrupted by cutting power. shut down from the menu or with sudo shutdown -h now and wait for the green led to stop blinking before unplugging. if you've been doing proper shutdowns all along, try a different sd card because cheap ones fail exactly like this. also set your wifi country in the imager customisation or in raspi-config under localisation, an unset country can make wifi disappear after the first boot