Every time the device is turned on, I can start hostapd for the first time. When I ctrl-terminate, the next time I start hostapd, I get an error message:
Failed to set beacon parameters
Interface initialization failed
wlan0: interface state UNINITIALIZED->DISABLED
wlan0: AP-DISABLED
wlan0: Unable to setup interface.
wlan0: interface state DISABLED->DISABLED
wlan0: AP-DISABLED
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-TERMINATING
hostapd_free_hapd_data: Interface wlan0 wasn't started
nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan0 disabled_11b_rates=0

try

 

ip link set wlan0 up 

 

It doesn't work. The wlan0 status is on. I think it's a kernel driver problem.

I tried the following commands, but none of them worked. Only when I rebooted the device did hostapd start correctly.

ip link set wlan0 down
ip link set wlan0 up
rfkill unblock wifi

systemctl stop NetworkManager
systemctl stop wpa_supplicant

Has anyone encountered this problem? I reproduced this problem on the 6.1 kernel image, and finally I returned to the 5.4 historical image, and hostapd ran normally.

anything 'interesting' in dmesg? and what is the Armbian / kernel version? e.g.

uname -a

 

btw 'real' armbian is currently at linux version 6.12.x

https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-zero-3/

 

btw I disabled wpa_supplicant when I run hostapd, I'm not sure if it'd affect anything, normally hostapd should work with wpa_supplicant running should be 'no problem'.

wpa_supplicant is 'connecting out', while hostapd is an AP hotspot.

 

The historical archive of armbian orange pi zero 3 seems to have been lost. I am currently using the 5.4 official image.

This is the current normal version output:

Linux orangepizero3 5.4.125 #1.0.8 SMP Wed Mar 19 23:35:12 CST 2025 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux
 

To investigate this issue, I continued to use Armbian_25.5.2_Orangepizero3_bookworm_current_6.12.30-homeassistant_minimal.img
 

Then uname -a output:

Linux orangepizero3 6.12.30-current-sunxi64 #2 SMP Thu May 22 12:29:54 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux

I just tested shutting down hostapd and restarting, it works

systemctl stop hostapd.service
systemctl start hostapd.service

 

system process like hostapd should normally be properly started up and shutdown using systemd, killing the process etc may leave the kernel in inconsistent state. And maybe that's why you observe the issue.

 

this is how I set it up

https://gist.github.com/ag88/de02933ba65500376d1ff48e504b1bf3

 

accordingly, hostapd may require the interface to be on a bridge, I'm not sure about this, but that I'm using a (software) bridge so that the wifi interface is on it.

> uname -a
Linux orangepizero3a3 6.12.35-current-sunxi64 #1 SMP Fri Jun 27 10:11:46 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux
>  nmcli c
NAME    UUID                                  TYPE      DEVICE 
bridge  a6aa1bb8-c47e-400e-8de1-7faf96489c7a  bridge    br0    
lo      084c74b2-0638-48be-b4c9-364f854ecabd  loopback  lo     
br-eth  6bab09b0-e16c-438b-a1bf-e0d82ca5141b  ethernet  end0  
>  sudo bridge link
2: end0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 master br0 state forwarding priority 32 cost 100 
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 master br0 state forwarding priority 32 cost 100

 

I put both ethernet and wifi on the bridge, wifi is not managed by network manager, hostapd patch that into the bridge.

 

it is possible to just let hostapd setup the bridge in hostapd.conf, and normally that's all needed.

 

this isn't the earliest armbian I'm running hostapd in, i've done it since linux 6.6.x kernel an earlier release some 1 year back or so, no issues.

 

Have you tried to start and shut down the service multiple times? How do you implement your hostapd.service? I haven't tried bridging, but the configuration for system services seems to be wrong. It happened multiple times. I tried countless times with the 5.4 kernel and it never failed, even by terminating the process.

When I did apt upgrade and didn't encounter any problems, I suspected that it was related to a bug in a specific version.