Troubleshooting Raspberry PI Models A (Plus) And Zero

Networking Issues

Models A, A+ and Zero have no wired Ethernet connector and thus it's impossible to access it unless it is connected to a wireless network. To preconfigure the wireless network for such a board, you have the following options:

• prepare a wpa_supplicant.conf file and place it on the boot partition of your SD card; Refer to the wifi preconfiguration wiki page for instructions.
• use a model B to boot it, configure the wireless network in the settings panel and boot the SD card on your model A/A+/Zero
• use writeimage.sh with the -n ssid:psk argument (requires Linux or OSX)

If your device still fails to connect to a wifi network, please make sure:

• wpa_supplicant.conf is supplied before the first boot.
• wpa_supplicant.conf is in the right partition (boot partition) and in the right directory (top directory alongside bootcode.bin, cmdline.txt, config.txt, etc...).
• wpa_supplicant.conf file is not named in a different way. It must be exactly wpa_supplicant.conf.
• wpa_supplicant.conf content is correct.

Out of memory

The limited amount of RAM of a model A can be a problem. In the default configuration, 128 MB are assigned to the GPU. With SMB & FTP services, video streaming and motion detection enabled, only 30-35 MB of RAM remain free. Copying files over SMB or FTP will quickly use up this memory. Zipping images or creating timelapse movies will most likely generate an error, even if you reduce the GPU's memory to 96 MB (the minimum).

Overclocking

It appears that model A/A+ boards are more sensible to overclocking than B ones. If your board becomes unstable (hangs, reboots often or simply presents many error messages), remove any overclocking setting and use the default 700MHz clock.