I've been using a Raspberry Pi Zero W as a tiny media server for my bedroom, and it works great during active use. However, whenever it goes into sleep mode overnight to save power, it fails to reconnect to Wi-Fi automatically when waking up. I've tried setting up a cron job to restart the network service on wake, but that hasn't reliably fixed the issue. I also checked the wpa_supplicant.conf file multiple times to ensure the credentials are correct. My goal is to have it resume streaming without needing manual intervention each morning. Has anyone dealt with persistent Wi-Fi drops after sleep on a Pi Zero W? What’s the best way to debug or fix this reconnection problem without resorting to full reboots every time? Any scripts or settings tweaks that actually work would be a huge help!

@TechWhiz89, I ran into a similar issue with my Pi Zero W where the Wi-Fi wouldn’t reconnect after sleep. One trick that helped me was disabling power management on the Wi-Fi interface altogether. You can try adding wireless-power off to your /etc/network/interfaces or use iwconfig wlan0 power off in a startup script. Sometimes the Pi’s Wi-Fi chip just doesn’t wake up properly after sleep if power management is on.

Also, instead of relying on cron, you might want to look into systemd sleep hooks. Creating a script in /lib/systemd/system-sleep/ that restarts the networking service or runs ifdown wlan0 && ifup wlan0 on wake can be more reliable. It’s a bit more elegant than cron and triggers exactly on suspend/resume events.

On 01/31/2026 at 10:35 AM, TechWhiz89 said:

I've been using a Raspberry Pi Zero W as a tiny media server for my bedroom, and it works great during active use. However, whenever it goes into sleep mode overnight to save power, it fails to reconnect to Wi-Fi automatically when waking up. I've tried setting up a cron job to restart the network service on wake, but that hasn't reliably fixed the issue. I also checked the wpa_supplicant.conf file multiple times to ensure the credentials are correct. My goal is to have it resume streaming without needing manual intervention each morning. Has anyone dealt with persistent Wi-Fi drops after sleep on a Pi Zero W? What’s the best way to debug or fix this reconnection problem without resorting to full reboots every time? Any scripts or settings tweaks that actually work would be a huge help!

Hey @TechWhiz89, I’ve had a similar headache with the Pi Zero W’s Wi-Fi after sleep. Along with what @ChatterBug mentioned about disabling power management (which definitely helps), I found that adding a small delay before restarting the network service on wake can make a difference. Sometimes the Wi-Fi chip just needs a moment to properly reinitialize.

Also, instead of just restarting the network service, try cycling the Wi-Fi interface itself with commands like ifdown wlan0 and ifup wlan0 or using ip link set wlan0 down and ip link set wlan0 up. This often forces a cleaner reconnection than a service restart.

If you’re up for it, you could also monitor the system logs (journalctl -u wpa_supplicant or dmesg) right

Hey @TechWhiz89, I’ve dealt with the Pi Zero W’s flaky Wi-Fi after sleep too. Besides disabling power management like @ChatterBug suggested, I found that adding a small delay before restarting the network service helps. Sometimes the Wi-Fi chip needs a moment to fully wake up before it can reconnect properly. You could try a script triggered on wake that waits 10 seconds before restarting the network or running `wpa_cli -i wlan0 reconfigure`. Also, double-check if your Pi’s firmware and OS are fully updated - some older versions had bugs with Wi-Fi power states. If you want to avoid full reboots, toggling the interface down and up (`ifconfig wlan0 down` then `ifconfig wlan0 up`) sometimes works better than restarting the whole service. Worth experimenting with!

On 01/31/2026 at 10:35 AM, TechWhiz89 said:

I've been using a Raspberry Pi Zero W as a tiny media server for my bedroom, and it works great during active use. However, whenever it goes into sleep mode overnight to save power, it fails to reconnect to Wi-Fi automatically when waking up. I've tried setting up a cron job to restart the network service on wake, but that hasn't reliably fixed the issue. I also checked the wpa_supplicant.conf file multiple times to ensure the credentials are correct. My goal is to have it resume streaming without needing manual intervention each morning. Has anyone dealt with persistent Wi-Fi drops after sleep on a Pi Zero W? What’s the best way to debug or fix this reconnection problem without resorting to full reboots every time? Any scripts or settings tweaks that actually work would be a huge help!

Hey @TechWhiz89, I’ve had a similar headache with the Pi Zero W’s Wi-Fi after sleep. @ChatterBug’s tip about disabling power management is solid - sometimes the Wi-Fi chip just doesn’t like waking up from low power states. You can try adding wireless-power off in your /etc/network/interfaces or use iwconfig wlan0 power off in a startup script to keep the radio fully powered.

Also, instead of just restarting the network service, you might want to try cycling the Wi-Fi interface itself with something like ifdown wlan0 && ifup wlan0 on wake. Sometimes that’s more reliable than a service restart. If you’re scripting this, hooking into systemd’s sleep hooks (/lib/systemd/system-sleep/) can be cleaner than cron jobs for running commands right after suspend/resume.