After Changes to the network interface configuration, you have to restart the network interface using this (assuming the interface is called “eth0”).

sudo ifdown eth0 && sudo ifup eth0

sudo ifdown wlan0 && sudo ifup wlan0

Alternative if you get error message (“ifdown: unknown interface wlan0”) for wlan0

sudo ifconfig wlan0 down && sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

WiFi interface reset doesn’t work?

We’ve found using Raspberry Pi OS Buster the above commands no longer cause the WiFi interace to pick up changes made to wpa_supplicant.conf. The following command does work instead:

sudo wpa_cli -i wlan0 reconfigure

USEFUL?
We benefit hugely from resources on the web so we decided we should try and give back some of our knowledge and resources to the community by opening up many of our company’s internal notes and libraries through mini sites like this. We hope you find the site helpful.
Please feel free to comment if you can add help to this page or point out issues and solutions you have found, but please note that we do not provide support on this site. If you need help with a problem please use one of the many online forums.

Comments

  1. lacymorrow

    2 years ago

    THANK YOU!

    I’ve been pulling my hair out using `sudo wpa_cli reconfigure` and not having any luck getting wifi connected. This is huge!

    This site is awesome, please keep it up.

  2. proy

    2 years ago

    Hey, after install bullseye on Buster, wifi don’T works; wpa-supplicant is correct; I can start wifi with “rfkill unblock 0” but after restart, don’t work; With connman removing, wifi is OK even after restart but graphic network interface stay off. If sommebody as an idea?

  3. Nau

    2 years ago

    pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo wpa_cli -i wlan0 reconfigure
    Failed to connect to non-global ctrl_ifname: wlan0 error: No such file or directory

    1. Marius

      1 year ago

      Getting the same error here, not sure what to do

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