Seemingly lockups with Version: 3.2.0 build Sep 7 2025 14:52:23

[pepperm2]

Sorry about this but I have migrated my ESP8266s (3 of them - 2 with 8 pixel tiles and 1 with a 4 pixel tiles) to robo040 LEDmatrixClock from the now not supported Weather Marque firmware. Everything works for a few minutes, sometimes hours, then the displays seem to scrolling text inceadibly slowly and I notice that my routed reports that the clocks have disconnected from the wireless access points.

I have tried various configuration options on all 3 clocks, such as different scrolling speeds and different time display formats but nothing seems to stop the hdisconnecting from the AP/very slow scrolling/lockup phenomenon.

Any ideas what could be wrong please, I am running Version: 3.2.0 build Sep 7 2025 14:52:23 on all 3 devices.
Mark

[rob040]

This may happen when the WiFi signal is weak; It tries to stay connected or re-connect to the AP and that happens in the 'background' but it halts the main loop. The weaker the signal the longer it takes.

[pepperm2]

Thanks for that rob040. I have now done more test and signal strength is definately not the problem as I have positioned all 3 clocks right next to (1m away) my access point and tried connecting to several differently named APs. All clocks disconnect after a while and go into slow scroll mode. They do not reconnect to that AP after that until power cycled. This never happened previously with the other Marquee software, could it be something to do with the different WIFI manager that you use?

I have reconfigured the WIFI access from the clocks, trying out all the APs that my router is broadcasting, all with the same effect.

My AP is a good Ubiquity Unify Dream Machine, which allows me to see the connections come and go, and worked with the previous code/WIFI Manager setup and works with every other ESP device that I have in my house, of which I have a lot.

SO, what could be the problem?

[rob040]

under investigation

[pepperm2]

oddly I have one clock that seems to work fine. They all have the same code installed. What could be the differences?

[rob040]

Configuration settings ?
Do you have MQTT setup and enabled?

At startup, all config settings are shown on serial port. Compare these.

[rob040]

I have made improvements to the internal processing. Now there will be no server access while the display is scrolling.

However, an external client (web browser) accessing / refreshing the web page will halt the scrolling display briefly.

This is included in release v3.3.0

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Please ☆ Star my repository when using my releases or sources.

[pepperm2]

Thanks for the update, I'' give that a go and report back if I have further problems.

[pepperm2]

I dont have MQTT enable by the way. I just use the basic clock and weather report functionality of the clock.

[pepperm2]

I've now uploaded 3.3.0 and 2 out of 3 devices still have the problem listed above.

[rob040]

I agree. I have seen that it is possible, once in a while, that scrolling display advances very very slowly.
It looks like some kind of race condition, not easy to replicate.
I'm looking into it, but open for suggestions.

My problem is that I can't really debug on ESP8266, other than with 'printf'. I'm considering to port the code to ESP32 where I have Jtag probe for debug. But that is quite a bit of work.

[pepperm2]

its odd that. I have one clock that exhibits the problem just a few minutes after it is powered up. Maybe there is something wrong with the ESP8266? I am trying to use the Arduino IDE to compile your code again but I just get the following error:

Compilation error: expected unqualified-id before 'false'

In WmlSettings.h

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I did get it to compile a version ago but can't figure out what is happening now. Maybe it is Library versions???

[rob040]

True, I have similar. I have two with Wemos D1 mini clone that work well, never issues. And one NodeMCU on the desk for testing, that occasionally "locks". i.e. it steps very slow, as in one step every 20-30 seconds.
The difference is the former have an ESP12F module and the latter is an older ESP12E or before. The difference is the WiFi antenna track. The ESP12F module has better WiFi reception.
Due to poor WiFi reception, the connection to AP is lost and the Wifi manager becomes active and tries the other listed SSID's. This blocks the main loop and causes the very slow scrolling, maybe in coincidence with ms timer overrun.
The last released binaries also contained a debug version, where the effect is more or less visible in the serial output logging.

wrt. compiling with Arduino IDE, did you read the README on this?

[pepperm2]

Thanks rob040, I am only using Wemos D1 mini's that are linkely clones and they use ESP-12F modules and they all did work for years with the older Weather Marquee software. The issue you describe is what I see though, the data that is being displayed is done so correctly but very very slowly (one step every 30+ seconds).

Why do you think that I cant compile the code?