Incompatibility issue between old Access Point & OS internal wireless

[jillelaine01]

Received our new 3.0 OS controller & expansion board yesterday. I cannot get it set up because it constantly reboots when in AP mode (initial setup). I have tried powering the controller with a 12 volt wallwart and a USB cable with the same result: the LED screen display cycles through a couple of screens, pauses at the display where it shows the IP address (192.168.4.1), a diamond-shaped icon blinks rapidly in the lower right corner for a bit, then stops blinking, and, a bit later, a blue LED flashes once on the wireless chip, and the controller reboots (“…starting”). I can see the controller in my list of wireless stations, but I cannot connect to it, because it reboots so quickly. I have tried resetting the controller to factory defaults with the same result. Anything else I should try?

Edit: original topic title “OpenSprinkler in AP mode (initial setup) constantly reboots”.

[jillelaine01]

After more tinkering, I discovered if I power off our Linksys AP, the OS controller no longer constantly reboots. With my AP unplugged, I can connect to the OS controller with my laptop wireless, and open the initial set up web interface at 192.168.4.1. The OS controller then scans for available wireless connections…and of course my wireless AP does not show up because it is powered off. But I type in my AP’s SSID & password, then plug in my AP, wait a few seconds for it to power up, and click the “Connecting…” button on the web page. The LED screen on the OS controller says “Connecting…” for a few moments, and then it reboots and comes back up in AP mode again. I can see no evidence in either my router’s or my AP’s logs that the OS controller is able to finalize a connection to my network.

What is it about my wireless AP that causes the OS controller to constantly reboot in AP mode? I admit that it is an older AP, but it normally works fine for my usage. I’ll attach two screenshots of its configuration.

I should note that I am doing this initial configuration on my workbench. My AP is ~5 feet from the OS controller. My laptop is ~1 foot away from the OS controller. Later: moved the OS controller and my laptop into another room so we were over 40 feet from my AP, and the reboots continue. There are many other wireless networks in my neighborhood that the OS controller detects, and their presence does not make the OS controller reboot. What is it about my old WAP?

Update: Took the OS controller & my laptop to a shop out in the backyard, about 100 feet from my wireless AP. At this distance from my wireless AP, the OS controller does not constantly reboot. I was able to connect to the OS web interface (192.168.4.1), and OS scanned & detected my wireless AP. I entered the password for my wireless AP, submitted, and OS shows “Connecting…”. Then OS reboots and goes back into its original AP mode with no IP from my router.

My wireless AP logs show the OS controller as “connected”, and I was able to obtain the OS mac address from this log. But my router logs do not show any connection from the OS controller. It seems the connection is not passed through my wireless AP to my router. I suspect the problem is my wireless AP, since it causes the OS to reboot constantly when it is within close proximity. I document this strange situation in case it is helpful to someone else in the future. Note that my wireless AP works fine with my other wireless devices, such as my laptop.

Attachments:

1. 

   linksys_ap_wireless_settings.png
   

2. 

   linksys_ap_wireless_settings2.png
   

[jillelaine01]

Another update. To eliminate my Linksys AP as the issue, I installed USB wireless card on a wired computer, as I don’t have a spare Access Point. Then I set up an ad-hoc network on that USB wireless card. I can see this ad-hoc network in the list of available wireless connections from my laptop, and I can connect to it: the ad-hoc network assigns an IP address to my laptop, and allows my laptop to connect out to the cloud.

Then I tried to set up the OS controller. I connected my laptop to the OS controller, and brought up its IP address in the browser (192.168.4.1). I do not see my ad-hoc network in the list of available wireless networks, even after a browser refresh. Nonetheless, I typed in the name of the ad-hoc network & its password. The OS controller says “Connecting…” for many minutes: it does not reboot.

Perhaps the wireless chip in the OS controller is set to not connect to ad-hoc networks?

Any other suggestions for troubleshooting this problem? Thank you.

[jillelaine01]

Update: I borrowed a newer access point and was able to get the OS controller through the initial set up with no problems. My earlier problems were definitely caused by my older Linksys access point: Wireless-B WAP11. Note that this old AP works fine for all my other wireless devices. I assume there is a compatibility issue with the OS controller’s wireless chip and my old AP. Perhaps this documentation will help someone in the future. Surely I’m not the only one with an ancient access point.

[Ray]

Sorry about coming to this thread late. From the symptoms, it sounds like it’s indeed a compatibility issue. The chip we use is ESP8266, which is very popular in the open-source hardware community (and in fact many commercial products too these days). I did search for “esp8266 Wireless-B WAP11” and didn’t find any existing report of incompatibility. It’s also possible that the issue was due to the firmware back then was compiled with an earlier version of the WiFi library, and since then we’ve updated the firmware and used the latest WiFi library. We have a new firmware (2.1.8) that will be released by this weekend, which may address the compatibility issue with some routers. At any rate, thanks for finding out the issue and reporting it.

[Author]

Posts