RaspAP doesn't restart at boot after powering up (Raspberry Pi 3B+ and PI Zero W 2)

[Fabri54]

Hi everybody, I started, mostly for curiosity and fun, to build a WiFi Extender or a Range Extender (call it the way you like it) based on a Pi 3B+ and on a Pi Zero W 2 and, of course, RaspAP. It worked fine almost immediately, on both microcomputers. Quite happy I've changed the admin password and the raspap-webgui password. I've properly shut down everything and gone to bed. This morning none of the two Pi works as an extender anymore. The two microcomputers have:

1. Raspbian version 11 Bullseye (32bit Lite)
2. Kernel version 6.1.21-v7+
3. Full upgrade run as the first step
4. latest raspAp (downloaded two days ago)
5. Instructions to instal RaspAP and setup a WiFi Extender followed to the letter

The Pi Zero has an ETH/USB HUB HAT by waveshare and, therefore, in both cases I can always connect with an ethernet cable to eth0.
In both cases wlan1 is connected to the home wifi with IP 192.168.1.xy and wlan0 has IP address 10.3.141.1. The point is that there is no raspap-webgui on the air.
If I run ifconfig I get: (note: ethernet cable disconnected as I can login with SSH through wlan1)
eth0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ether b8:27:eb:d6:b3:69 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

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10
loop txqueuelen 1000 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 84 bytes 5592 (5.4 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 84 bytes 5592 (5.4 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 10.3.141.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.3.141.255
inet6 fe80::d5d2:3e85:537b:5c23 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20
ether 34:7d:e4:4f:bb:51 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 52 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

wlan1: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.1.77 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255
inet6 fe80::b1ab:b502:6a6f:54e3 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20
ether 34:7d:e4:4f:b0:67 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 97 bytes 20291 (19.8 KiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 7 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 66 bytes 12571 (12.2 KiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 2 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

I cannot restart raspap.services as it doesn't find it and even if I copy it from /var/www/html/installers to /lib/systemd/system/, releoad the daemons and enable raspapd.service nothing happens and at reboot raspapd.service has disappeared.
Has anybody an idea about what could have happened and how to solve it.
Many thank for any help

[billz]

Hmm, that's odd. I suspect it could be related to the daemon not loading. A normal raspapd runs at startup and exits (RemainAfterExit=no). The following is typical:

○ raspapd.service - RaspAP Service Daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/raspapd.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead) since Sat 2024-03-09 16:14:54 CET; 2s ago
    Process: 3307 ExecStart=/bin/bash /etc/raspap/hostapd/servicestart.sh --interface uap0 --seconds 3 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 3307 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 367ms

Mar 09 16:14:40 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Starting raspapd.service - RaspAP Service Daemon...
Mar 09 16:14:40 raspberrypi bash[3307]: Stopping network services...
Mar 09 16:14:41 raspberrypi bash[3307]: Changing RaspAP Daemon --interface to uap0
Mar 09 16:14:41 raspberrypi bash[3307]: Disabling systemd-networkd
Mar 09 16:14:44 raspberrypi bash[3307]: Starting network services...
Mar 09 16:14:54 raspberrypi bash[3307]: RaspAP service start DONE
Mar 09 16:14:54 raspberrypi systemd[1]: raspapd.service: Deactivated successfully.
Mar 09 16:14:54 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Finished raspapd.service - RaspAP Service Daemon.

You could also try running the ExecStart manually: /etc/raspap/hostapd/servicestart.sh --interface uap0 --seconds 3. If this works try adding it to cron.

That said, the raspapd.service isn't strictly necessary if hostpad, dnsmasq and dhcpcd are all enabled.

[Fabri54]

Thank you. Just done and rebooted. Let's see what's happening

[Fabri54]

OK, I've a nice debug.log file which tells a huge amount of info. Should I look for help keeping this discussion open and hoping somebody can chime in or should I look for help somewhere else?
Again, may thanks for your help

[billz]

No worries. Best to upload the log to https://pastebin.com/ and post a link here.

[Fabri54]

Just a short update. I've restart from scratch the installation on the Pi 3B+
Re-installed the OS, updated, kept the on-board wifi alive, no eth0 connection. Installed the drivers for the WiFi dongle.
Installed RaspAP and configured as a WiFi Extender. Worked like a charm and has stood several reboots and shutdowns with disconnection from the power. So far I haven't seen the smallest glitch.
Next I'm going to kill the on-board WiFi and add a second WiFi dongle. We'll see