Solve: When Your Raspberry Pi Shows Up on the Router… but Vanishes from the Browser

Solve: When Your Raspberry Pi Shows Up on the Router… but Vanishes from the Browser

The Phantom Pi: Why You Can See It, But Can't Reach It

You're staring at your router’s device list and there it is: your Pi-Star or MMDVM Raspberry Pi 3B+ proudly reporting an IP address. And yet, no matter what browser, laptop, or phone you try, the dashboard times out. No OLED display. No ping response. And definitely no web interface. What gives?

This is a classic Raspberry Pi network ghosting issue—one where the board appears semi-functional but is, in reality, halfway to a coma. It’s not just frustrating—it’s misleading. Your instinct might be to blame your browser, your cabling, or even your imagination. But the root cause often lives deeper, buried in the Pi’s boot process, its web server config, or in cases like these, a corrupted Pi-Star image.

Symptoms That Point to a Soft Brick

What makes this more than a network problem is that you’re seeing two IP addresses (wired and wireless), and none of them respond. Pi-Star.local doesn’t resolve. SSH is down. And yet, the router logs tell you the Pi is online. Add a dead OLED screen to that and we’re now looking at what many call a “soft-bricked” board—where the OS partially boots but can't complete networking or service startup.

This usually happens after a bad shutdown or SD card corruption. If the system can’t finish loading Apache or Nginx, or if rc.local scripts fail, you’re left with a half-alive system. Enough to get a DHCP lease. Not enough to serve a dashboard.

Getting Back to Life: Reflashing with Confidence

Here’s where Raspberry Pi Imager comes in. Back up your existing card if you can (just in case), then grab a fresh Pi-Star image. Use Raspberry Pi Imager to burn it, insert it into the Pi, and wait. If the OLED springs to life and the hotspot announces itself again on Wi-Fi as pi-star, you're golden.

You can use the browser again—start with http://pi-star.local or whatever IP shows in the router list. Some browsers may try to complete the full URL automatically, so be sure to include the http:// prefix, as Pi-Star does not support https://.

After the reflash, if you still get two IPs but no dashboard, check for rogue services or configuration leftovers. And if you want to go full diagnostic mode, SSH in and inspect /etc/network/interfaces or /etc/dhcpcd.conf—though most users won’t need to dig that deep.

Reflash Checklist (Quick Version)

• Download the latest Pi-Star image from the official site
• Use Raspberry Pi Imager to write the image to your SD card
• Insert the SD card into your Raspberry Pi and power on
• Wait for the OLED display to light up and Pi-Star Wi-Fi to appear
• Visit http://pi-star.local or the IP shown in your router
• Optional: Set up Wi-Fi via wpa_supplicant.conf before first boot

For a snappy, copy-friendly version of this process, see the companion Gist checklist with step-by-step reflash guidance.

The Lesson: It's Not You—It's Probably Your SD Card

When dozens of devices can't connect, and even your phone says “not secure” or “site can’t be reached,” it’s not a network gremlin. It’s the Pi failing silently. The fix isn't to change browsers—it’s to start fresh with a healthy image. Treat your Pi-Star like a living system: graceful shutdowns, regular reboots, and high-quality SD cards go a long way.

Need Raspberry Pi Expertise?

We'd love to help you with your Raspberry Pi projects.  Feel free to reach out to us at info@pacificw.com.

Written by Aaron Rose, software engineer and technology writer at Tech-Reader.blog.