[BUG]: Image Customisation settings not applied

[michaliskon]

What happened?

Raspberry Pi Imager v2.0.3 (users report similar behaviour in v2.0.6)
Raspberry Pi OS Lite (32-bit and 64-bit)

I initially didn’t have access to an external display, so I likely spent around five hours reflashing and retesting.

The first time I flashed (with a fresh installation of Imager), all customisations were applied as expected.
However, I had to reflash and tried this several times over the next hours with the same results:
only the hostname customization was being applied. Other settings - localisation, user configuration, and remote access - were not applied.
Wi-Fi customisation was applied, although I tried this only once.

What I have tried and do not work:

• Uninstalling and reinstalling Imager

Version

2.0.3 and 2.0.6 (possibly also intermediate versions)

What host operating system were you using?

Windows

Host OS Version

25H2

Selected OS

Lite 32-bit and 64-bit Release: 2025-12-04

Which Raspberry Pi Device are you using?

Raspberry Pi 3 and 4

What kind of storage device are you using?

microSD Card in a USB reader

OS Customisation

• Yes, I was using OS Customisation when the bug occurred.

Relevant log output

[MrV-98]

Getting the same issue with Pi 4B
I cant seem to get it to work headlessly with this version of the imager, it disregards all custom settings

[CaptainBart]

Same here with RPi Zero 2W. WiFi is not configured. On first boot I saw an error with the "user config service" or something like that.

[vahnx]

It was saving settings for me on a different PC but I just tried a new PC and can confirm it disregarded all my custom settings. Both on 2.0.3 and with Pi 4B Trixie 32-bit

[kbenyous]

Hello,
I tried :

• RPI Imager 1.9.3 on Linux
• RPI Imager 2.0.3 on Windows

Same problem here for Raspberry OS lite arm64 Trixie (2025-12-04) and Bookworm (2025-05-13) :

• host name not set
• SSH server not enabled

The target platform is a CM4 with emmc storage.
I have not investigated any further yet, since this Pi is completely headless (no hdmi port).

[MrV-98]

Im on win11 now using v2.0.2 this seems to work for setting SSH
Host name, WI-FI still seem to be misconfigured

Atleast now I can SSH into the PI

[DAProgs]

I'm getting the exact same issue for Raspberry OS lite arm64 Trixie (2025-12-04)
RPI Imager on Linux mint 1.8.5
Had to go through the manual setup of the pi

[mkromkamp]

Ran into the same issue trying to flash Raspberry OS lite amd64 Trixie with Imager version 2.0.3

Re-installed 2.0.2 to confirm it is not a me issue. And 2.0.2 does work for me.

[apopanda]

Same issue for me on the 4B.

[aljfrm-crypto]

same issue on Linux Mint 22 XFCE with Raspberry Imager 1.8.5 from Ubuntu repository and with Raspberry Imager 2.0.3 Appimage from Raspberry website.
It has worked with v2.0.0 available here https://downloads.raspberrypi.com/imager/

[ThiefMaster]

I was already annoyed after having updated the imager, because it no longer remembered my defaults I had set in the previous version. And guess what, it looks like it ALSO did not correctly set up the SSH keys I entered for authentication...

Edit: So after mounting the sdcard it looks like it took my windows username (lowercased) as the default non-root user. I don't think this was displayed anywhere...

[semihsmg]

same with Imager v2.0.3, Ubuntu Server 25.10 and Pi 4B

[sproggit]

Also getting the same problem with a brand new Pi4B/8Gb and a brand new image cut today, using Imager 1.9.0 on Mint 21.3, "Virginia". Though I strongly suspect that the imager version is irrelevant as the root cause of the issue is on something happening on the back end, either with the image being downloaded, or the customisation scripts that take provided values and bake them in to the microSD cards.

[lurch]

Also getting the same problem with a brand new Pi4B/8Gb and a brand new image cut today, using Imager 1.9.0 on Mint 21.3, "Virginia".

Unless you were deliberately flashing the older Bookworm OS, using Imager 1.9.0 definitely won't work, as versions of Imager < 2.0 don't know how to write the cloud-init-rpi customisation required by Raspberry Pi OS Trixie. See here for more details.

[lurch]

Edit: So after mounting the sdcard it looks like it took my windows username (lowercased) as the default non-root user. I don't think this was displayed anywhere...

I can only assume that you must have skipped past it, but Imager 2.0 definitely prompts you for a username and password. See the screenshots at https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/getting-started.html#advanced-options