ssid not defined

[ScooterKraig]

I have been trying to get an Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board to connect to a local network. I'm getting an error message that "ssid isn't defined" on the line "wlan.connect(ssid, password)".

%Run -c $EDITOR_CONTENT

MPY: soft reboot
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 7, in
NameError: name 'ssid' isn't defined

The file secrets.py contains:
'''
ssid = "my_ssid"
password = "my_password"
'''
and a snippet of my code that fails is:

'''
import network
import secrets

#print(ssid)

wlan = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)
wlan.active(True)
wlan.connect(ssid, password)

'''

I also get an "ssid isn't defined" error when I simply run "print(ssid).
This error is happening only with the Arduino RP2040 board. It has worked as it should with a Raspberry Pi Pico W.
I can't see any syntax errors in my code. What could be happening?

[steveh127]

Try:

from secrets import ssid, password

Or:

wlan.connect(secrets.ssid,secrets.password)

It's quite correct that ssid is not defined. It's such a basic error it's easy to miss, we have all done similiar, at least I certainly have.

[ScooterKraig]

Either of those works. Thanks.

[Oliver2003Taylor]

The issue you are facing is a fundamental Python namespace error rather than a hardware fault with the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect. When you use import secrets, the variables inside that file are contained within the secrets module, meaning they cannot be accessed directly by their names alone. To resolve the NameError, you must either change your import statement to from secrets import ssid, password to bring them into the local scope, or reference them as secrets.ssid and secrets.password within your wlan.connect() function. Using these standard import methods will allow MicroPython to identify your credentials correctly. For more advanced implementations and to see how Python handles connectivity in a broader context, you might find this https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/IoT_Using_Raspberry_Pi_and_Python.html project helpful, as it demonstrates similar logic for managing data and network states effectively.