Hey Arnold,
Off the wall
thought, it is possible that without any Ethernet
device in the Pi Zero that something is looking for
it, and kills things? ?That seems to be a common
thread in my troubleshooting. ?If I have some sort of
Ethernet or WiFi connected or not, nothing fails.
?When I don't have something, then I get this failure.
When your Rpi isn't connected to the network, what is in the
/etc/resolv.conf file?? Anything?? Is DNSMasq running??
--David