Wi-Fi Access Point (hostapd) not stable after reboot on Genio 510 EVK

General Discussion
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1

Hello,

I am working on bringing up the Wi-Fi Access Point on the MediaTek Genio-510 EVK board.
My goal is to enable AP mode and allow Wi-Fi-to-Wi-Fi file transfer between two boards (AP ↔ STA).

I followed these steps:

  1. **Verified AP mode support:
    **
    iw list | grep -A 10 “Supported interface modes”

    2.Created hostapd configuration file /etc/hostapd_ap.conf:

    interface=wlp1s0
    driver=nl80211
    ssid=Genio510_AP
    hw_mode=g
    channel=6
    wmm_enabled=1
    macaddr_acl=0
    auth_algs=1
    ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
    wpa=2
    wpa_passphrase=12345678
    wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    rsn_pairwise=CCMP

    3.Assigned a static IP to the AP interface:

    ip addr add 192.168.10.1/24 dev wlp1s0

    4.Started hostapd manually:

    hostapd /etc/hostapd_ap.conf

    After doing this, the Wi-Fi Access Point appears in nearby devices, and I was able to connect successfully.
    However, after rebooting the board, the connection becomes unstable — I can still see the SSID, but I cannot connect to the AP using the same steps.

    When I try to start hostapd again, I get:

    nl80211: Could not configure driver mode
    nl80211 driver initialization failed.
    wlp1s0: interface state UNINITIALIZED->DISABLED

    It seems like the Wi-Fi interface remains in an invalid or conflicting state after reboot.

    Could you please help me understand how to properly bring up AP mode after reboot, or if any service (like NetworkManager or wpa_supplicant) is conflicting with hostapd on the Genio-510?
    Any guidance to make AP mode stable would be appreciated.

    Thank you,
    Niranjan M

2

Hi MediaTek Support / Team,

I wanted to provide an update on my previous issue regarding the unstable Wi-Fi Access Point mode on the Genio-510 EVK.

After several trials, I found that the AP mode becomes stable if I run the following commands in this order:

systemctl stop NetworkManager
systemctl stop wpa_supplicant
pkill -9 hostapd
pkill -9 dnsmasq

ip link set wlp1s0 down
iw dev wlp1s0 set type __ap
ip addr add 192.168.10.1/24 dev wlp1s0
ip link set wlp1s0 up

dnsmasq -C /etc/dnsmasq.conf --no-daemon &
hostapd /etc/hostapd_ap.conf

Then I start hostapd in the background:
hostapd -B /etc/hostapd_ap.conf

After executing these steps, the AP mode works reliably, and I’m able to connect and transfer files between boards.

I’m not fully sure why this specific sequence stabilizes the connection, but I observed that using
hostapd -B /etc/hostapd_ap.conf

makes the setup more stable compared to running hostapd in the foreground.

Could you please confirm if there is a recommended way to initialize the Wi-Fi interface or start hostapd to ensure stable operation after reboot?

Thank you for your support,
Niranjan M