WBEC box not constantly available after upgrade to 0.41

[oldgitdaddy]

After upgrade and reset, the availbility of wbec is really limited. It got even worse. Ping to wbec is also loosing packages. Any advice is appreciated. Do other users have a similar impression regarding the stability after the upgrade?

Cheers!

[zivillian]

I'm pretty sure, your ESP is dying with out-of-memory - you can confirm this, by connecting to the serial console. Do you use the web interface? As far as I've observed it, the async webserver alone may use more memory than available.

[oldgitdaddy]

I do not really use the web interface. So if there is a way to switch this off to save memory, I am happy to do so. Good point, I will connect the serial port and check the memory usage. Potentially, I need to go back to version 0.40, as this was working almost without glitches.

[oldgitdaddy]

Just a quick update. I have turned the version back to 0.4.0 and it works again. So I guess it would be good to have the option to turn off parts of wbec, so that everyone can use it in a tailored and optimized way. @steff393: What do you think?

[steff393]

Hi,

up to now I didn't face such behavior in my setup with 0.4.1.
The differences between 0.4.0 and 0.4.1 are only

• MQTT logging (Improve docu on MQTT and logging #9) --> this part is also in the test-SW I sent you
• Refactoring of the code (clean up and unification with hgdo)

Turning features on/off by config is already considered, where possible, e.g.

• MQTT only when IP and loadpoint are configured
• RFID only when IDs are provided in rfid.txt
• Powerfox only when credentials are configured
• ...

I also don't think that "out-of-memory" (RAM?) is the reason. The biggest RAM consumption is the powerfox component (for HTTPS). This needs ca. 9k of RAM. I assume you don't use powerfox, so this whole, huge area is still available and can be used.

When RAM is out, it will not lead to bad WiFi connection. Instead the ESP will do a reboot (within some seconds), so it would be available again afterwards.
Indicators for "SW still running and not stuck":

• the blue LED near to D0 will flicker every 10s (cfgMbCycleTime)
• the Wallbox is not starting the "Timeout blink pattern" (6x white, 3x blue)

Looking to the serial interface could clarify if there are resets/reboots or not. The WiFi connection is handled by the ESP-SW itself. Unfortunately I don't know how I could influence here the behavior at loss of connection or similar...

[oldgitdaddy]

Ok. So in case this is just a wifi problem, would there be a chance to add LAN connectivity to wbec? That would eliminate a lot of potential problems also in the future.

[oldgitdaddy]

Regarding Wifi connectivity, did you consider to put avoid wifi sleep mode like this:
WiFi.setSleepMode(WIFI_NONE_SLEEP);

Currently 19% of the network packages (via ping) are lost.

[steff393]

LAN would be great ;-) But it's unfortunately not possible with ESP8266. Maybe it would have been a better idea to directly start with the ESP32, which seems to have support for LAN.
Up to now, I didn't use this setSleepMode command, but I can introduce it.

[oldgitdaddy]

So over the past days, wbec worked just fine with 0.40.0. I also turned back to the default configuration (mqtt off). I had almost no package losses. It is really strange, as my setup did not change at all. I am really hesitant to update it. We probably may consider to wait for further feedback from other users regarding the latest version.

[steff393]

Strange... Do you now have the official 0.4.0 or the test SW for #9, which I provided you via mail (0.4.0+)?
Up to now there are

• 15 downloads of the 0.4.1
• 48 downloads of the 0.4.0

[oldgitdaddy]

I am now back to 0.4.0.

[steff393]

I had a look to the setSleepMode documentation. It seems to be relevant, when there is no WiFi communication for 10s.

10s is also the default interval for wbec to poll the box and then send the values over MQTT. Maybe changing the cfgMbCycleTime from 10s to 3s in cfg.json could help to stabilize the connection.

[oldgitdaddy]

Ok. I will apply observe and report. Thanks!

[steff393]

wbec 0.4.2 will have an optional parameter cfgWifiSleepMode:
"cfgWifiSleepMode":0 => WIFI_NONE_SLEEP
"cfgWifiSleepMode":1 => WIFI_LIGHT_SLEEP
"cfgWifiSleepMode":2 => WIFI_MODEM_SLEEP
If it has a different value or is not set at all, then there's no change (i.e. WiFi.setSleepMode() is then not called).

[oldgitdaddy]

I have installed now version 0.4.2. Will report on the long-term behavior of wbec, but until now it is looking well.

You may consider to update the wiki regarding the additional configuration.

Let´s close the discussion here then.