My Shield has been working great for the past week or two, connecting to a guest wifi, receiving an IP, and letting me view its server page. Over the weekend it suddenly stopped, I get the error:
Press any key to begin.
ESP8266 Shield Present
Mode set to station
Connecting to Roo-Guest
Error connecting
Error: -3
Looping forever.
The blue light (stat) is continuously blinking, which the guide says means it’s attempting to connect. The switch is set to SW, not HW, as it has been since the beginning. This is happening with the ESP8266 Shield Demo code. Is this a hardware issue? Any ideas?
I suggest you first check if that Roo-Guest wifi is working correctly. Can other wifi devices connect to it? Is the password still the same as 2 weeks before? Did something change in it’s environment such that signalstrength became a problem?
The code in the Demo and library comes down to the ESP8266 saying over the serial port that connecting to that SSID just failed. After that in deliberatly enters an endless loop.
If you upload an empty sketch to the arduino (to avoid the demo code interacting with the shield) and then set the switch to hardware mode, can you manually send AT commands in the serial monitor to the shield and make it connect to a wifi SSID?
The commands to do that can be found in a document in Sparkfun’s ESP8266 AT Arduino library extras folder:
I did double check Roo-Guest, everything seems to be working. My laptop connected just fine, the password is the same as well. There has been no changes in the environment, as far as I know, that might impact signal strength.
The PDF you linked asks me to flash a blank.bin file, is this referring to uploading an empty sketch? If so, I did upload one. I also set the serial to Newline and changed to 115200baud, and switched to hardware mode. The commands don’t seem to have an effect:
No, I meant an empty Arduino sketch. Nothing inside setup() and loop(), so it doesn’t do anything. The esp8266 firmware should have been left as is. Now that you flashed the ESP8266 with a blank.bin file I wonder if the AT command software is still in there. Does it respond to AT at all with OK?
Valen:
No, I meant an empty Arduino sketch. Nothing inside setup() and loop(), so it doesn’t do anything. The esp8266 firmware should have been left as is. Now that you flashed the ESP8266 with a blank.bin file I wonder if the AT command software is still in there. Does it respond to AT at all with OK?
I didn’t flash anything actually, just uploaded an empty Arduino sketch. Right now there is no response to any AT command. I could try a blank.bin flash if you think that would be useful?
Ok, I misread then. No, don’t flash a blank.bin file to the ESP8266. That would make it braindead. You should have only use that document to see which AT-commands you can send to connect with your Wifi manually. The demo code would do essentially the same, just automatically. And with more code to tell you what it’s doing.
Infact, forget what I said with trying to directly communicate with the ESP8266 shield. If the very same code is/was running on the arduino as 2 weeks ago then it’s not going make you much wiser. That demo code is running good since it is able to switch it to station mode.
I’m out of ideas. A hardware issue is more likely than software. But it’s going to be a guessing game without more knowledge about what’s around the ESP8266 shield or inbetween the router and it. Distance, how is the shield powered,etc. Did you reset that wifi router or whatever hosts that Roo-Guest SSID?
I wasn’t suggesting that the shield is defective. There might still be functional requirements that keep it from working. You haven’t shared much about your hardware setup other than it is an ESP8266 shield. What arduino model is connected to it, and how it that powered? If you flash the demo code back onto the Arduino again do you get the same response in the Serial monitor? If so, then it likely not defective. Just because it doesn’t connect doesn’t have to mean the Wifi radio inside it is broken. (unless there is obvious damage to the antenna trace) There might be some authentication protocol preventing connection with the university wifi, requiring going to a special university webpage first. Put Sherlock Holmes’ hat back on and investigate some more. And don’t hold back on telling what your setup is. Guessing only goes so far.