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How I fixed the "starting wpa_supplicant: failed (brcmfmac)" problem (for me!)
motionEye Version | 0.39.2 Motion Version | 4.1.1 OS Version | motionEyeOS 20180627
Raspberry Pi Zero W 1.1 USB Webcam Logitech C270
Many have described the problem of trying to log a Pi Zero W onto a WiFi network, and getting a failure with "starting wpa_supplicant: failed (brcmfmac)" message during bootup.
I had tried all the many suggestions here and elsewhere with no luck, and finally hit on the solution (for me anyway). When checking the "wpa_supplicant.conf" file with a text editor that shows HEX (to check there were only LF characters for line ends - not CR+LF) I noticed the double quotes surrounding the SSID and password were the complex triple-byte Unicode versions E28096 and E2809D (in HEX), not the simple single-byte ASCII version 22 (in HEX). On changing those complex opening and closing double quotes to the simple version, all started working OK.
Where did the complex versions come from? I suspect that as some point I copied someone's "wpa_supplicant.conf" file from a forum, and their "helpful" text editor had substituted the complex opening and closing double quotes for the simple versions. It is VERY difficult to see this on a printout, or on screen, unless you look VERY hard! Anyway, it fixed it for me!! Hope it helps others too!
Refs: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/201C/index.htm https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/201d/index.htm
Hi. Let me see if I can find a copy for you. (Six months ago though!) Give me a day or so.....
HI again. Sorry, I don't have the copy of wpa_supplicant.conf that I actually used any more, but I believe I used Notepad++ on Windows for this. See here:
https://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2017/04/manually-setting-up-pi-wifi-using-wpa_supplicant-conf/
...specifically in UNIX/OSX mode - as described in that article. Hope this helps! (and just make sure the double quotes are NOT "66+99", rather "11+11" !!
Thanks I’ll give it a try
On Jan 16, 2020, at 9:30 AM, mooblie [email protected] wrote:
Here it is:
wpa_supplicant.conf.zip
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That didn't work. I finally got it to work by connecting to a RPI3 with wired network, configuring that pi to use wifi network, testing to make sure it connects, then taking the sd card from that pi and finding the wpa_supplicant file (the pi creates it when it's configured to use wifi) (it's in a misc directory I think), copy that file to the RPIzw and it works!! must be formatting differences or something, I even tried creating the entire file in Linux which also failed....
Wow! Glad you got it working, but it sounds like a mystery, as to what actually was the cause of the problem. Anyway - good job!
Very observant, thanks. In my case I think it was caused by using Linux keyboard definition 'English (US, intl with dead keys).' Using 'English (US) keyboard definition inserts straight 0x22.
By the way: I used Midnight Commander's F3 (view) command, followed by F4 (hex) as a hex editor.
Here it is:
Only with that file work for me :) Thanks! All that story with numerous wpa_supplicant.conf troubleshooting on web is a complete mess ...
