Properly checking for errors during a WiFi connection?

[Hyperion]

Hello, MicroPython forums! I'm trying to connect to a network on a ESP32 while telling the status and the reason for an error, if it occurs. Since there is no WLAN irq for the ESP32 port, I thought that initializing a timer when connecting, for checking the status every half a second and counting it up to a given timeout, is quite adequate. Or is there any more recommended way to do that? Also, it seems to stay for well over 10 seconds in the 1001 status (connecting) and never goes to the error status messages. So how do I find out when it resulted in an incorrect password or any other error?

I cannot find any propper documentation for the WLAN.status() numbers. The ones I found so far are:

• 200: BEACON_TIMEOUT
• 201: NO_AP_FOUND
• 202: WRONG_PASSWORD
• 203: ASSOC_FAIL
• 204: HANDSHAKE_TIMEOUT
• 1000: IDLE
• 1001: CONNECTING
• 1010: GOT_IP

I have constructed this list from the STAT_ variables that appear when I use tab on the network module, in REPL. But it appears to be incomplete, as sometimes I get to status 205, 8 or 15 after issuing the disconnect() command while I'm still connecting. Are there even more and what do they mean?

Lastly, when I worked with AT firmware on the ESP32 before trying out MicroPython, I could get a response when the module was connecting to a network, and another when it had already connected and was getting an IP. MicroPython seems to skip the "getting IP" step and only go from 1001 (connecting) immediately after issuing the connect command to 1010 (connected and got IP). Is it just incomplete so far or is there another way of checking for that?

TL;DR:

1. How to properly retrieve the error status of a connection (wrong password or timeout) or how to access the WLAN irq on ESP32?
2. What are all the WLAN.status() codes?
3. Can I check for when the module is connected but still getting the IP, before the connection is fully established?

[Hyperion]

I still haven't found a better solution than using a timer and disconnecting it after a certain time. Does noone have any WiFi connection monitoring experience with the ESP32?

[pythoncoder]

With Kevin Köck (@kevinkk525) I developed two libraries which support "resilient" WiFi connections, asynchronous MQTT and micropython-iot. You might like to look at the code to see how to initiate and reliably maintain a WiFi connection. Note that these libraries are cross platform; they will run on ESP32.

[kevinkk525]

I should add that neither of those libraries exposes why the wifi connection fails. The libraries just try to connect with the given credentials and tries to stay connected.
Should you have provided wrong credentials then the library will just not be able to connect. The mqtt_client will raise an Exception if the first connect to wifi fails but still the user has to figure out himself why the wifi connection is not successful.

[Hyperion]

If there's currently no way of knowing what caused the connection error, can it at least be implemented?

And as for the interrupt, that's out of luck aswell?

[kevinkk525]

If the user wants to know why the initial wifi connection fails, he can check it himself. The mqtt_as library will raise an Exception on "client.connect()" if the wifi connection can't be established.
Therefore there is no need for an interrupt.

[Hyperion]

Problem is I want to raise it automatically the exact moment the connection has caused an error. And I want to avoid using libraries because according to the filesystem commands I have only 2MB of available space, at least a half of which I know I'll need for certain data.

By the way, any idea what the other codes are for?

[tjlynchny]

If the user wants to know why the initial wifi connection fails, he can check it himself.

Well, yes, I do want to know why the initial connection fails. I tried checking like this:

Code: Select all

import network
nic = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)
nic.active(True)
nic.connect('my-ssid', 'my-password')

s=nic.status()
if s == STAT_NO_AP_FOUND:
    print("no AP found")
if s == STAT_WRONG_PASSWORD:
    print("wrong password")
. . .

I've tried checking for all six STAT_ constants as listed in the docs ( https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/ ... .WLAN.html ) but, in fact, they are not defined. At least, I'm seeing an error that says they are not defined.

What am I missing?

My AP is working, got the proper SSID and password, using 2.4GHz ...

[Christian Walther]

They are in the network module, not in the global environment: network.STAT_CONNECTING etc. See help(network).

[tjlynchny]

They are in the network module, not in the global environment

In the sample code I posted, the first line is

Code: Select all

import network

, and I'm still seeing error messages telling me the constants are undefined.

Looking at source, I don't see any place where, for example,

Code: Select all

STAT_NO_AP_FOUND

is defined.

Still don't see what I'm doing wrong.