issues with time.sleep() and time.tick_ms on Lolin ESP 32S3 pro

[katesfb]

Hi,
I have been having issues with time.sleep() and time.tick_ms() on a Lolin ESP 32S3 pro device from Wemos. I am using Thonny.

Some examples.
This works as it should:

>>> while True:
    print('Boo')
    time.sleep(1)

and gives the correct result:

Boo
Boo
Boo
Boo

However if i use this:

>>> while True:
    print('Boo')
    time.sleep(3)

this only gives:
Boo
and then stalls.

Similarly.
This works as it should:

>>> while True:
    elapsed = time.ticks_ms() - start
    if (elapsed > 1000):
        start = time.ticks_ms()
        print(time.ticks_ms())

giving:

540529
541530
542531
543532
544533
545534

However this:

>>> while True:
    elapsed = time.ticks_ms() - start
    if (elapsed > 3000):
        start = time.ticks_ms()
        print(time.ticks_ms())

only gives:
660647
and then stalls.

I have tried the same examples on another Lolin ESP32S3 Pro board with the same problems.

I have also tried the same examples on a standard ESP32-WROOM-32 device however this worked fine with no issues indicating that the issue is with the Lolin S3 Pro device or maybe its setup. These boards come pre-loaded with MicroPython v1.23.0-220.g6927639898 on 2024-07-11.

Any help to sort out what is going on here would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

[robert-hh]

No problem here with these tests using a Lolin ESP32S3 and MicroPython v1.25.0-preview.118 and newer. Please try a recent version of MicroPython.

[robert-hh]

Sometimes the ESP32 has to be set to firmware update mode manually. For that, push the IO0 button and hold it, push the RST button and then release both.

About relays: The different ESP32 modules have different current they can drive on an GPIO pin. And it may be configured differently. Anyhow - never drive a relay or other inductive loads directly from GPIO pins. The flyback voltage when switching off may harm the device. Always use an external transistor for driving the load with appropriate protection against the flyack pulse.

[katesfb]

HI @robert-hh,
And thanks again for the reply.

I upgraded the boot-loader firmware in the operational unit and the code seems to work now. Thanks very much for your help with this.

About relays: The different ESP32 modules have different current they can drive on an GPIO pin........

I am not actually driving a relay directly - its a relay module which just accepts a signal from a pin - when i have the board hooked up to a battery everything works fine, so it only resets if dont have the battery connected (current limiter on the input from the USB?)

The only issue i have left is related to the boot sequence that runs at power up. Currently if i run from within Thonny everything works fine however if i power the board from a battery through the dedicated on-board lipo battery input the program starts and then stalls after a few seconds. Is it possible i have not put something in boot.py that should be there?

I have not used micropython for a very long time (~5-6 years at least), but it was my understanding that the two main files required are boot.py for initialization stuff and main.py which holds the main code to be executed. The program itself is essentially a remote logger that logs sensor data and then uploads it to an FTP server once per hour (~200k per hour - 6Hz data rate). As indicated this all works perfectly when running in Thonny. However when i run from external power it stops after a few seconds at the point where it attempts to access the network. This is the code i use to access the network via a 4G wifi modem (for testing modem is always on):

def wifi():
    print('WiFi...')
    
    ssid='4G-UFI-0DF'
    key='1234567890'
    
    print('Connecting to ',ssid)
    wlan = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)
    wlan.active(True)
   
    while not wlan.isconnected():
        print('connecting to network...')
        wlan.connect(ssid, key)
        time.sleep(1)
        
    print('Connected')
    print('Mac Address: ',wlan.config('mac'))
    print('network Address:', wlan.ipconfig('addr4'))

Is there any reason that the program would stall at this point when running on battery alone but runs flawlessly when running from with Thonny environment? Is there some network init code that needs to be in boot.py?

Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers.

[davefes]

I would suggest removing anything from boot.py and in main.py place:

import machine
import time


if machine.reset_cause() == machine.SOFT_RESET:
    print('you got a SOFT_RESET, so do a machine.reset()')
    time.sleep(1)
    machine.reset()

print('wait 2 seconds to allow a CTRL-C')
time.sleep(2)

import your_program

This ensures that you also start off with a reset that leaves more of the device properly initialised. A poweron reset (pressing the EN button) does a even better job.

Also, you are given a chance to break into the program before it starts to run.

[robert-hh]

but it was my understanding that the two main files required are boot.py for initialization stuff and main.py which holds the main code to be executed.

You do not need boot.py or main.py. It is just, that boot.py and main,py are started in sequence, if they exists.

As of the difference between running with and without Thonny:

1. Power: When you use Thonny, the board is powered through USB. You could check is the power makes a difference by running the power powered by a USB power supply, like a smart phone charger, or just connected to the PC without Thonny being active.
2. Files being executed: It may be that using Thonny files from the PC are executed and not the files on the board. Please verify that the files you need are really in the file system of the board. Try running the board with a "dumb" terminal emulator like Putty or mpremote.

[katesfb]

Hi @davefes and @robert-hh ,
Thnks for hte replies much appreciated.

@davefes: boot.py was already empty. Thanks for the code.

@robert-hh : In reply to your suggestions i have cut down the code to a minimum that reproduces the issue:

import machine, os, time, network,sdcard
from machine import Pin
from neopixel import NeoPixel

def rgbAll():
    rgb = Pin(38, Pin.OUT)
    neo = NeoPixel(rgb, 1)
    for x in range(3):
        neo[0] = (255, 0, 0)
        neo.write()
        time.sleep_ms(200)
        neo[0] = (0, 255, 0)
        neo.write()
        time.sleep_ms(200)
        neo[0] = (0, 0, 255)
        neo.write()
        time.sleep_ms(200)
        neo[0] = (255, 255, 255)
        neo.write()
        time.sleep_ms(200)
        neo[0] = (0, 0, 0)
        neo.write()
        r, g, b = neo[0]         # get first pixel colour
        print(r, g, b)
        ## break
    
    print('Done')
    
def blinkWhite():
    rgb = Pin(38, Pin.OUT)
    neo = NeoPixel(rgb, 1)
    neo[0] = (255, 255, 255)
    neo.write()
    time.sleep_ms(15)
    neo[0] = (0, 0, 0)
    neo.write()
    
def sdcard_setup():
    print('SD card....')
    sd = sdcard.SDCard(machine.SPI(1, sck=machine.Pin(12), mosi=machine.Pin(11),miso=machine.Pin(13)), machine.Pin(46))
    os.mount(sd,'/')
    print(os.listdir('/'))
    
def wifi():
    print('WiFi...')
    
    ssid='4G-UFI-0DF'
    key='1234567890'
    
    print('Connecting to ',ssid)
    wlan = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)
    wlan.active(True)
   
    while not wlan.isconnected():
        print('connecting to network...')
        wlan.connect(ssid, key)
        time.sleep(1)
        
    print('Connected')
    print('Mac Address: ',wlan.config('mac'))
    print('network Address:', wlan.ipconfig('addr4'))
    
'''============================================'''
'''blink the RGB so show power etc is good'''
rgbAll()
time.sleep(1)

'''print info related to what controller is designed to do'''
print('Test operation when powered from battery')
print('Prog: main.py')

print ('\nNow running setup...')
'''setup the SDcard and read from the config file'''
blinkWhite()
sdcard_setup()
## timeZone, site = readConfig()
time.sleep(1)

'''connect to wifi and get NTP time'''
blinkWhite()
## wifiDelay()    ## delay to allow time for wifi modem to power up 
wifi()
## ntpTime()
## setTime(timeZone)
time.sleep(1)

start=0
while True:
    elapsed = time.ticks_ms()
    if elapsed - start > 1000:
        start = time.ticks_ms()
        print(elapsed)  ## testing
        
        ## blink a LED
        blinkWhite()

If i comment out the reference to the wifi() function then the program works perfectly from within Thonny IDE and from external battery and from power bank . If i use the wifi() function in the program then it works only from within Thonny IDE, it stalls from external battery or power bank and also if PC has gone into standby such that the USB from PC is supplying power only (Thonny not active).

It would seem to be the wifi() funtion that is causing the problem but only when powered from external power supply.

I also noticed that i if the PC has been off and i then use Thonny i get the following error within the IDE on first run but runs fine after that:

Now running setup...
WiFi...
Connecting to  4G-UFI-0DF
connecting to network...
connecting to network...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 82, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 54, in wifi
OSError: Wifi Internal Error

I assume that it is this error that is occurring when running from an external supply like batter or power bank etc.

The board i am using is this> https://www.wemos.cc/en/latest/s3/s3_pro.html

Re. Active files; Below is a screen shot of Thonny showing structure in the flash of the device:

Again any help you can give with this is much appreciated.

Cheers.

[davefes]

OSError: Wifi Internal Error

Try replacing:
wlan.active(True)
with

    wlan.active(False)
    time.sleep(0.5)
    wlan.active(True)
    time.sleep(0.5)

Sorts the problem on the ESP32. I haven't got any ESP32S3.

[robert-hh]

For me it still looks like a power supply issue. Did you try to run the device from a USB power supply, capable to source at least 1A.

A thing of your code: Do not mount the SD card to "/". Mount it to a path like "/sd". Mounting to "/" interferes with the internal file system.

[katesfb]

Hi @davefes and @robert-hh ,
Again, Thanks for the replies much appreciated.

It seems to be mostly working now.

@davefes: I tried your suggested code and this didn't work so i mucked around with the length of the delays however this also didn't work. Then i tried increasing the length of the delay between retries if it initially didn't connect:

while not wlan.isconnected():
        print('connecting to network...')
        wlan.connect(ssid, key)
        time.sleep(1)     <------increased length of this

And this seemed to do the trick. So the code i am current using to track things when not connected PC is:

while not wlan.isconnected():
        print('connecting to network...')
        wlan.connect(ssid, key)
        for n in range(6):
            blinkWhite()
            time.sleep(0.5)

Total delay is 3s which seems to work. Can you explain to me why this seems to work? Needs time between connection failures to reset things?

@robert-hh :

Do not mount the SD card to "/". Mount it to a path like "/sd". Mounting to "/" interferes with the internal file system.

Ahh that may explain a couple of things. Currently all log files are written to '/' on the SD card, mainly because the original program that was written in C++ was done that way and it worked fine, so i will make the change and see what happens.

I would like to thank you both very much for your help with this. I wont mark it as solved just yet till i can do some testing of the whole system before it is deployed in the field but things are now look very promising.

Quick unrelated question: what do you guys use as your preferred IDE for micropython development? There does seem to be a few options.

Cheers.

[davefes]

Something else you can try as it seemed to make a difference on the ESP32:
could try ...

active(True), disconnect() and then connect()

There seemed to be issues re-connecting to a router if you didn't disconnect properly first. Frankly, I do not know what is happening at the lower-level, just tried a number of "fixes" until it worked properly.

I use rshell and nano on a Ubuntu desktop. mpremote and VSCode seem to be more popular.