AutoHotspot fails on DigiPi (Trixie) - "802.1X supplicant took too long to authenticate

[BILLAUDEL Jean-Philippe]

Hello,

I am unable to get the DigiPi automatic hotspot working with version 2.1-3

I’ve tried with:

• Raspberry Pi 5
• Raspberry Pi Zero W v1.1
• Raspberry Pi 3 B+

The result is the same on all three devices.

System information

Operating System: Raspbian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) Kernel: Linux 6.18.34+rpt-rpi-v6 Architecture: arm Hostname: digipi

Symptoms

After boot:

• The DigiPi hotspot is not visible.
• wlan0 is detected correctly.
• NetworkManager is running.
• wlan0 remains disconnected.
• autohotspot.service is in a failed state.

Output of:

nmcli d

DEVICE TYPE STATE CONNECTION lo loopback connected (externally) lo wlan0 wifi disconnected -- p2p-dev-wlan0 wifi-p2p disconnected --

The Wi-Fi interface is present:

iw dev

phy#0 Unnamed/non-netdev interface type P2P-device Interface wlan0 type managed channel 11 (2462 MHz), width: 20 MHz

Failed service

systemctl --failed

shows:

autohotspot.service loaded failed failed

The service status contains:

autohotspot.service - Automatically generates an internet Hotspot when a valid SSID is not in range Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/autohotspot.service; enabled) Active: failed (Result: exit-code) ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 30 ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/digihotspot.sh Main process exited, status=4

Relevant log lines:

Auto-hotspot checking network status. Wifi network is down, enabling hot spot mode. Error: Connection activation failed: 802.1X supplicant took too long to authenticate autohotspot.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=4/NOPERMISSION autohotspot.service: Failed with result 'exit-code' Failed to start autohotspot.service

Manual hotspot test

The NetworkManager profiles exist:

nmcli c

NAME TYPE lo loopback hotspot wifi wlan0 wifi

Trying to activate the hotspot manually:

sudo nmcli c up hotspot

returns:

Error: Connection activation failed: 802.1X supplicant took too long to authenticate

Hotspot profile

The hotspot profile appears correct:

connection.id: hotspot connection.type: 802-11-wireless connection.interface-name: wlan0 802-11-wireless.ssid: DigiPi 802-11-wireless.mode: ap 802-11-wireless.band: bg 802-11-wireless-security.key-mgmt: wpa-psk 802-11-wireless-security.proto: rsn 802-11-wireless-security.pairwise: ccmp 802-11-wireless-security.group: ccmp ipv4.method: shared ipv4.addresses: 10.0.0.5/24

I also see repeated Broadcom driver messages during startup:

ieee80211 phy0: brcmf_vif_set_mgmt_ie: vndr ie set error: -52

The profile is configured as a WPA-PSK access point, so I do not understand why NetworkManager reports an 802.1X authentication timeout.

Has anyone reproduced this with the current DigiPi Trixie image?

Could this be an incompatibility between NetworkManager, wpa_supplicant, the Broadcom driver, or the current AutoHotspot configuration?

Thanks.

73 de F4EGM

[BILLAUDEL Jean-Philippe]

NetworkManager 1.52.1
wpa_supplicant 2.10
Linux 6.18.34+rpt-rpi-v6

driver supports Access Point (AP)

nl80211: kernel reports: key setting validation failed
wlan0: Could not connect to kernel driver
Interface initialization failed
Failed to initialize AP interface
hostapd_free_hapd_data: Interface wlan0 wasn't started

NetworkManager:
Hotspot network creation took too long
reason='supplicant-timeout'

[BILLAUDEL Jean-Philippe]

Not compatible with 3B and zero W !
I still don't know why it doesn't work with RPi5...

[Craig]

BonJour Jean-Philippe,

You're correct in that the 3B and ZeroW are unsupported.  (3B+ and Zero2W is ideal).

It's possible it's a region/locale issue in France?  DigiPi's wifi region is "unset" by
default, you might run "sudo remount" then "sudo raspi-config" since you have
a console open and go to system->configure_wifi, which will prompt for your
region and also your ssid/password for home wifi.

Secondly, check for the hotspot on more than one device, phone/tablet/pc to
be sure it's not there.

Also, do not burn the image with Pi Imager if possible (use balena etcher
or dd if possible).  If you do use Pi Imager, do not allow it to modify the
image.

Lastly, confirm the pi isn't resting on mylar bag, metal objects and remove
any other 2.4Ghz wifi devices from the room while testing.

I just downloaded the digipi sd card image and inserted into a pi5, applied
power, waited 90 seconds, and the hotspot appeared here,

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[Craig]

Additionally, this is what the "systemctl status hotspot" should output.  I noticed it comes
up on 2.4Ghz on channel 11 when I tried on the Pi5.  Okay in France?


● autohotspot.service - Automatically generates an internet Hotspot when a valid ssid is not in range
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/autohotspot.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (exited) since Wed 2025-10-15 21:02:51 BST; 3min 7s ago
 Invocation: 14a259e20543411abd4897ec82790178
    Process: 905 ExecStartPre=sleep 30 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 965 ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/digihotspot.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 965 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 38ms

Oct 15 21:02:21 digipi systemd[1]: Starting autohotspot.service - Automatically generates an internet Hotspot when a valid ssid is not in range...
Oct 15 21:02:51 digipi digihotspot.sh[965]: Auto-hotspot checking network status.
Oct 15 21:02:51 digipi digihotspot.sh[965]: Wifi network is down, enabling hot spot mode.
Oct 15 21:02:51 digipi digihotspot.sh[967]: Connection successfully activated (D-Bus active path: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/2)
Oct 15 21:02:51 digipi systemd[1]: Finished autohotspot.service - Automatically generates an internet Hotspot when a valid ssid is not in range.

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