Rpi 0 W, wifi no scan results

Question

I have this freshly bought Raspberry Pi 0 W. I created a USB connection between the rpi and my laptop (ubuntu 20.04) and I ssh-ed into the rpi.

The OS on the pi is Raspberry OS Lite. Using a microSDHC 32GB from SanDisk.

I power the pi from my Galaxy S7 phone charger, has 5V and 2A, it's pretty old. But in this case it also gets power from laptop's USB.

The issue is that I cannot see any wi fi networks when scanning, but my router is 1 meter (3ft) away from my rpi (i do have a 2.4 Ghz network)

Should I consider sending the RPI back to the seller? Or do you see any fix to this?

Here is the output of some commands from which you could get an idea of the situation:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ifconfig
lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 1000  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
usb0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 10.42.0.164  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 10.42.0.255
        inet6 fe80::791:86e2:3cb7:26c7  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether e2:c9:a6:a8:02:37  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 148  bytes 17566 (17.1 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 109  bytes 15174 (14.8 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
wlan0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether b8:27:eb:f3:6a:c2  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 5.10.17+ #1414 Fri Apr 30 13:16:27 BST 2021 armv6l GNU/Linux
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /etc/debian_version
10.9
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor   : 0
model name  : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 7 (v6l)
BogoMIPS    : 697.95
Features    : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp java tls 
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part    : 0xb76
CPU revision    : 7
Hardware    : BCM2835
Revision    : 9000c1
Serial      : 0000000014a63f97
Model       : Raspberry Pi Zero W Rev 1.1
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ip a s
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: usb0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether e2:c9:a6:a8:02:37 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.42.0.164/24 brd 10.42.0.255 scope global dynamic noprefixroute usb0
       valid_lft 3118sec preferred_lft 2668sec

And here you can see the no results found:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo iw dev wlan0 scan
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo iwlist scan
lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.
usb0      Interface doesn't support scanning.
wlan0     No scan results
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0     No scan results

I tried using the wpa_supplicant.conf file but to no success. I even tried to do a headless wi-fi start but it wouldn't connect to my network. (i couldn't ping it or see it on my router's devices' list)

My router type is a TP Link Archer C64. It is just an acces point, connected to another router which is the gateway to the internet.

I honestly do not know what to do anymore. Tomorrow I'll receive an OTG adapter and I will connect my keyboard to the pi. But I think I should have been able to see some networks even when ssh-ed through USB cable.

UPDATE:

Here is the wpa_supplicant.conf that I tried to use before booting up the pi. Password has been changed in order to post here.

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
country=RO
update_config=1
network={
 ssid="Camera2"
 psk="66354632A"
}

After booting up, I ssh-ed through USB then I did a wifi scan and no results. Then I did

sudo raspi-config

And I set the wi-fi location as Romania. After that I had to reboot. Then I would no longer be able to ssh through USB and I see on the pi monitor (i have an HDMI plugged into it) "my ip address is 169.254.34.95"

A quick google says this ip is gotten at a failed dhcp. But the pi is still not on my router's device list.

Probably it tried to get an address from the usb connection once it rebooted.

EDIT 2: I eventually managed to ssh in it using the USB. Here is some output. Still not seeing any wi-fi. (Remember that this time the location wifi has been set through raspi-config to Romania) and it rebooted.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=RO
network={
    ssid="Camera2"
    psk="246563563A"
}
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo iwlist scan
lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.
usb0      Interface doesn't support scanning.
wlan0     No scan results
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo iw dev wlan0 scan

Answer 1

Have you checked this?:

ifconfig says wlan0 is present, but not RUNNING, so perhaps check that wpa-supplicant.conf was actually created:

$ less /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 

The file should be present, and roughly structured like this:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=UK

network={
ssid="YourWiFiSSID"
psk="YourWiFiPassword"
}

You can also use wpa_cli to verify that wpa_supplicant is actually running:

$ wpa_cli list_networks
which should yield something like this iaw my system, where Mesh01 is the SSID of my wifi:
Selected interface 'p2p-dev-wlan0'
network id / ssid / bssid / flags
0   Mesh01  any

---

Epilog: However it now occurs to me, 18 months later, that the issue you may be facing is that by connecting your Pi 0W to your Ubuntu via USB you are using it as a USB On-the-Go device. This changes everything! This answer speaks to that difference, and may help sort the issues associated with using the wifi interface as you seem to be trying to do.