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esp32Thing crashes.

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2018 1:50 pm
by DonTelescope
During my application development the esp32 Thing would crash.
I was powering it from the USB port on my computer. I thought is was a power brownout problem so I built a battery powered regulated 5.0v supply with and lm317 which could easily deliver 1amp. Things seemed to work better, didn't concern myself with the occasional crash during development.

My code is a data logger which sends 25 bytes of data over the wifi every 5 seconds and needs to run for days. I could get the board to run for a few hours but it would always eventually crash. The crashing is now more frequent, I am lucky to keep it running for 30 seconds now. Most of the time now as soon as I ask my PC to connect to the WIFI network it immediately crashes. The board seems to have degraded an now hardly runs. I have ordered a new board and hope it works.

I have used both client and AP server mode. I am now in AP server mode. I am using the blue led as a mode light to show me what part of my code is executing. When it crashes the led goes to a very dim continuous on state. I Have a debug version of the code which I can run with the serial monitor when connected via USB. It has the same behavior and when it crashes there is no diagnostic displayed.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Re: esp32Thing crashes.

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 1:25 pm
by DonTelescope
Today 8/27 tried new board. This is how a printed circuit installation with a robust power supply (5.13V).
It ran for one hour and 13 minutes before it hung. Frustrating.

Re: esp32Thing crashes.

Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2018 1:04 pm
by paulvha
the ESP32 is working on 3V3. Are you providing 5V on the battery connection or the USB?

Re: esp32Thing crashes.

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:27 pm
by DonTelescope
I am providing 5V to pin 2 on the header which is VUSB-RAW.
I was using the spark fun real time clock module BOB-12708 which uses the DS1307. I do have a logic level converter.
Software communication used wifi.h I rewrote my application and removed the dependence on the RTC. I took out wifi.h
Now my application works without crashing. I have however not had time to run it for more than a few hours. I hope
to do more extensive testing later this fall.

Re: esp32Thing crashes.

Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 7:49 am
by DonTelescope
The wifi part of the second board is now defunct. The esp32Thing executes code, it doesn't crash but I can no longer connect to the WIFI.
It had been working just fine. I was debugging other circuits on the board so I was ignoring this board for a few weeks, it just sat there waiting
for somebody to connect. I recently tried to connect from my PC, it tries and tries, connects for a few seconds and then disconnects.

Re: esp32Thing crashes.

Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 4:49 am
by paulvha
can you share the code you are using? An ESP32 (like the ESP8266) needs to be perform regular background tasks for onboard WIFI and BLE. If you have a waiting loop, you have to include yield() on a regular basis to prevent the watchdog to timeout and cause a crash. Also you remember the kind of messages you got when crashing ?
regards,
paul