Are you using Imager 1.9.4? if so there is a known WiFi error https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-imager/issues/1067
Try using Imager 1.8.5
Sadly, despite this Issue being reported by many people, the cause having been discovered, and a temporary work-around offered, the Raspberry Pi developers seem to be in denial about the existence of this bug in their Imager utility.
The last contribution from a Developer said:
Ref: https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-imag ... 3024918535The common cause of that is people not waiting long enough for the Pi Zero to finish doing it's first-boot tasks (resize the root filesystem, generate SSH host keys, etc.), and so they try connecting to the Pi Zero before the SSH server is even running.
He goes on to say further discussion should take place in these Forums. Repeated attempts to get the Forum Mods/Admins to intervene have so far failed to move this forward.
Frustrating!
Statistics: Posted by B.Goode — Fri Jul 11, 2025 9:22 am