No wireless interface found

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1

I have very limited Pi experience.
I had a fully working Pi3B, I updated it, now no wireless or Bluetooth.

After 24 hours of failed investigation on the Pi3B I cut my losses in time and bought a Pi3B+ along with Pimoroni 16GB sdcard supposedly containing a “noobs image” but I think it’s a raspian image only.

I read and saved that image and then wrote the image onto two other sdcards.

I put the one copied sdcard in the Pi3B+ withOUT wired network it booted directly into raspian desktop at the welcome screen waiting for setup, no usual NOOB choices offered. Immediately the Bluetooth icon is BLUE not grey leading to being able to insert wifi setting and completing update

I put the other copied sdcard in the suspect Pi3B withOUT wired network it booted updated directly into raspian desktop at the welcome screen waiting for setup, no usual NOOB choices offered. Immediately the Bluetooth icon is GREY (not blue) so I will not be offered the chance to put wifi credentials.

This to me confirmed that the wifi is not working on the Pi3B and will not work.

Is there some way that updating the Pi3B a week ago could have destroyed wifi, is this a FATAL error? My 24 hours of investigation making command line wifi settings etc already failed.
Could I pretend it doesn’t have wifi components and buy the Pi wifi dongle and make it useful again or am I throwing good money after bad?

2

I found a Netgear WG111T usb wifi device circa 2007 in my computer stuff plugged it in the Pi3B and a popup box asking my wifi credentials appeared. Duly entered Pi3B now connected to the internet. However no Bluetooth. Pulled out wifi dongle and Pi3B cannot connect to internet.

So a Pi wifi dongle would not be a waste of money.

3

I’ve not heard of an update disabling the WiFi before, but as you’ve found out a WiFi dongle should still work.

The card you have is, indeed, a NOOBS image but it comes with Raspbian preinstalled for convenience since the vast majority of people would just do that anyway. I believe you must hold “Shift” during startup to get into the NOOBS recovery menu where you can select and install alternate operating systems.