Headless boot problem

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1

Okay, so I need some help. I have two 3D printers: an Ender 3 Pro and a regular Ender 3. They are both running the Creality 4.2.2 mainboard. I have the Ender Pro hooked up to an OctoPi running on a Raspberry Pi 3, which works fine, and I love it. I'm trying to set up the Ender 3 on an OctoPi running on a Raspberry Pi 0W2. The Raspberry Pi will not finish booting headless. If I plug it into a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, I can get OctoPi to fully boot up, get on the network, and everything. But the second I try to boot it headless, it never makes it. It just sits there; the little green light flashes for a while, then it goes solid green, and that's it. How can I fix this, or what did I do wrong? I have re-burned the SD card twice, and I'm having the same issue all three times.

Please help

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2

Can you telnet into it???

3

No I can't telnet into it and when I go into my router I can't even see it as being on
the network

4

At the end of that sequence you should get the actual IP address of that Pi.

5

Do you have a USB microSD adapter? We could use this to mount the failing microSD card on the working RPi 3 and examine the log files (ignore this link).

Another experiment would be to use the RPi Imager and select one of the default RPi OS images. If this works and the OctoPi image doesn't, then you could use octoprint_deploy to add OctoPrint to it.

6

Here's the thing though when I plug in a monitor and keyboard to the Raspberry Pi 0w2 it boots up perfectly fine takes a little while but hey it's Raspberry Pi 0w2 the only time I have any problem is all is when I'm trying to boot it up headless I literally let it sit there for an hour yesterday and it still wouldn't finish booting and I'm using the official Raspberry Pi Imager

7

When I booted up that way I do get an IP address and all that and it shows up in my router is being there but when I try and Boot It Up headless it never gets to that point it never shows up in the router no matter how long I let it sit there

8

When you start with the monitor and get that IP, are you able to connect to the front end via that IP?

For clarification: This is the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W ?

9

I have an RPi Zero 2 W that boots headless. Been a while since I flashed the OS but it was NOT an OctoPi image. It does have a full desktop so I can use Putty and VNC to connect (see below).

When you booted for the first time, did you have the monitor and keyboard connected? Have you tried doing the first time boot headless?

I just tried headless first boot on mine with the current OctoPi stable image and it came up. I need some adapters to try a first boot with monitor and keyboard.

pi@rpizero2:~ $ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="12"
VERSION="12 (bookworm)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bookworm
ID=raspbian
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"
pi@rpizero2:~ $ uname -a
Linux rpizero2 6.12.47+rpt-rpi-v7 #1 SMP Raspbian 1:6.12.47-1+rpt1~bookworm (2025-09-16) armv7l GNU/Linux
pi@rpizero2:~ $
10

For the pi zero w2 with the Ender3 attached, what combinations do work to boot and be active on the network (including booting without the ender3)? That would identify where in the boot process the pi is waiting for a device to be seen, and pausing if the device isn't found.

Once you have found the problem device, see if the same things happen with a default rpi image on the same 0w2 and sd card. If the same things happen with a default image, it's hardware (eg, grounding issue between 0w2 and ender3 that the additional device unintentionally corrects), if not, it is something that is enabled on the OctoPi image.

0w2 + ender3 + monitor + keyboard + mouse = successful network
0w2 + ender3 = does not appear on network

Try boot with just one of the additional devices connected:
0w2 + ender3 + monitor = ?
0w2 + ender3 + keyboard = ?
0w2 + ender3 + mouse = ?

Try boot without the ender3 connected:
0w2 = ?
0w2 + monitor = ?
0w2 + keyboard = ?
0w2 + mouse = ?

Does the 0w2 work connecting to the ender pro?:
0w2 + ender pro = ?

11

Printedgoo, good call. Helps define it down.

Can you go to your \var\log folder and grab your system log file zip and post it please.

12

I will try that when I get home from work this weekend

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And if I can get it to come up again with the keyboard and the monitor attached I will try and snag that log file

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