11.20.2013

How To: No Adapter shown in WiFi Config on Raspberry Pi (fix)

In an attempt to make your Raspberry Pi wireless through command line you may have changed some settings in the interfaces config file. As as a result when attempting to set up your wireless dongle through the WiFi config GUI you may notice that no adapters show up. If this is the case you should follow these steps first to see if it can fix the issue.

Performed with:
HW: Raspberry Pi Model B
OS: 2012-12-16-wheezy-raspian
Wirless Dongle: Belkin N150 (F7D1101)



Step 1
From your Pi's desktop double-click LXTerminal to bring up the command line.

Step 2
In the terminal type sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Step 3
Edit your interfaces config file by making sure the text looks like the following...

auto lo
auto wlan0

iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp
Step 4
Save your work by pressing Ctrl X and confirming save. Plug in your WiFi dongle. Now reboot your Pi (sudo reboot).

Step 5
When your Pi restarts type startx to bring up the GUI again. Now double click the WiFi Config icon to bring up the wpa_gui properties box. If all was successful you should now see wlan0 show up in the Adapter section. From here you should scan for you SSID and set up the connection.

If you are still not seeing anything in the Adapter section. You may want to go back and troubleshoot a few issues with your dongle. The command lsusb (that's lowercase L) is good for checking to see if your pi even recognizes your WiFi adapter. There may be issues with your adapter needing to run from a powered USB hub as well, so don't rule out that possibility.

Also be sure that your adapter is at least known to work with the Pi consult the compatible WiFi Adapter List: http://elinux.org/RPi_USB_Wi-Fi_Adapters

Hope this helps.


5 comments:

  1. Thanks for giving out important notes regarding Raspberry WiFi configuration setting. I think people who are struggling to make the setting perfect might find such instructions effective.

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  2. noticed "auto wlan0" was missing from that file

    then

    sudo ifdown wlan0
    sudo ifup wlan0

    brought it back for me

    ReplyDelete
  3. it still fails to appear. i did exactly as you said. i typed lsusb and it came up. it is a realtech semiconductor corp and came with a kit sold on the rsspberry pi website. what do i do?

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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