Unable to Connect to Wifi using ESP Home Firmware

[Nestor]

Hi, when setting up a new board, I first used the ESP Home firmware but was never able to connect to wifi and access the configuration page, even though the SSID and password were correct. 

Poking around some threads, I noticed many were using the MQTT version. After successfully installing MQTT firmware, I was able to connect to wifi and access the config page. From there, I installed the plugin, and set up the credentials and rebooted. I then realized the plugin I purchased was the "standard" version which requires the ESP Home firmware. 

I reflashed the board, however I'm back to where I started: No wifi connection and no config page. 

Not sure where to go from here. 

Edit: I re-flashed with the MQTT firmware. It took a while for the device to connect, however the IP address listed in the config page is nothing near what my router would assign from its IP pool, which makes me think it didn't actually connect to my wifi. 

ETA: My SSID appears in the wifi drop-down list, but after I enter my wifi password, it tries to connect but ends up saying "unable to connect". 

Edited July 10 by Nestor

[Nestor]

Update: Noticed a new mac address in my router client list with the name "Espressif Inc". Suspecting it is the ratdgdo, I gave it a static IP address from my DHCP reservation list. After a couple of gdo resets, the wifi finally took and was able to visit the device via both IP address and local hostname.

In PG3x, even though my IP address was local to the ISY, I added a custom configuration and 4 nodes finally appeared. (Yay!)

Now for gdo board #2...

[Goose66]

Glad it worked out. Don't know why people aren't able to use local discovery using mdns. It works here, but I have Polisys, not eISYs. I believe it has something to do with LANs and broadcast restrictions. A PC with Bonjour seems to be more forgiving than the eISY environment.

Note for others, you can always use the free version through MQTT - it should work. And if you have dry contact GDOs, this may be sufficient. However, there appear to be issues with the MQTT firmware and Security 1/2+. After several days or weeks, it seems to lose control (probably a code rotation issue), and upon reboot you are left in an inconsistent state until you can exercise the door manually. The ESPHome firmware appears not to have these issues, and, as of now, will be the only firmware supported by the ratgdo plugin in future updates.

[Nestor]

3 hours ago, Goose66 said:

Glad it worked out. Don't know why people aren't able to use local discovery using mdns. It works here, but I have Polisys, not eISYs. I believe it has something to do with LANs and broadcast restrictions. A PC with Bonjour seems to be more forgiving than the eISY environment.

Note for others, you can always use the free version through MQTT - it should work. And if you have dry contact GDOs, this may be sufficient. However, there appear to be issues with the MQTT firmware and Security 1/2+. After several days or weeks, it seems to lose control (probably a code rotation issue), and upon reboot you are left in an inconsistent state until you can exercise the door manually. The ESPHome firmware appears not to have these issues, and, as of now, will be the only firmware supported by the ratgdo plugin in future updates.

Not sure why, but it appeared to take several reboots of the GDO and more than a dozen attempts to connect to my wifi, even though I could see the GDO's mac address in my router and the IP address I assigned it. Same thing for the second board. Also, tried a straight Discover in PG3x for the second, but ended up adding the custom config parameters as I did for the first. 

Nonetheless, both boards are now appearing my EISY. 🙂

[Goose66]

"it appeared to take several reboots and more than a dozen attempts to connect to the wifi..." It took the reboots and connection attempts before what? You said you could see the GDO's mac address and assigned IP address in the router. Did it show as connected? In trying to access the onboard website, were you using "ratgdov25i_XXXXX.local" or the IP address?

If what took all those attempts was accessing the onboard website via the .local hostname, this is likely a problem with the PC from which you are running your browser and/or the network configuration and how it handles multicast traffic. I am no network expert, but I am beginning to believe that some home Wifi routers break multicast mDNS traffic from LAN to WLAN. If you have LAN segments with managed switches or bridges, make sure they are configured to forward the mDNS multicast addresses/ports.

[Nestor]

28 minutes ago, Goose66 said:

"it appeared to take several reboots and more than a dozen attempts to connect to the wifi..." It took the reboots and connection attempts before what? You said you could see the GDO's mac address and assigned IP address in the router. Did it show as connected? In trying to access the onboard website, were you using "ratgdov25i_XXXXX.local" or the IP address?

If what took all those attempts was accessing the onboard website via the .local hostname, this is likely a problem with the PC from which you are running your browser and/or the network configuration and how it handles multicast traffic. I am no network expert, but I am beginning to believe that some home Wifi routers break multicast mDNS traffic from LAN to WLAN. If you have LAN segments with managed switches or bridges, make sure they are configured to forward the mDNS multicast addresses/ports.

The pop-up box to connect to wifi kept returning “unable to connect” after selecting my SSID and entering the wifi password. Neither the IP address nor ratgdov….local would work. Until they did, and I have no idea if it was due to my repeated attempts. 

Not sure if this is relevant, but after each reset, I’d review the boot log to look for evidence that the GDO picked up the IP address, SSID, etc of my router. Eventually they did and coincidentally, was able to access the web page via the pop-up box or directly via web browser. The boards were stable after power-down and final installation in the openers. 

My LAN is a recently purchased ASUS ET12 mesh. 

[Goose66]

Don’t know what to tell you. One of the reasons that I believe the ratgdo developer moved to the ESPHome version of the firmware is all the wi-fi stuff is somebody else’s issue. You could log the problem as an issue on the github site for the eSPHome firmware, but there aren’t a lot of answers there, unfortunately.

As I said, I have two Genie screwdrives operating in “dry contact” mode and they both worked fine with the MQTT firmware (with some programmatic limitations) and so far have been stable and functional on the ESPHome firmware.

Edited July 12 by Goose66

[LZTech]

I had a very similar issue to this one. I had a TP-Link Archer C4000 router and was having connection issues.  After flashing the firmware, the ratgdo would take 1-2 minutes to connect to wifi and then would allow me to open it's hosted webpage to make changes to settings.  I was unable to see the ratgdo on my network listing of devices in my router and the ratgdo was also assigned an address way outside of my router's parameters.  After selecting settings and resetting the ratgdo, I was never able to reconnect to the settings page of the ratgdo (it would just timeout).  Also, it would go the full 500 attempts to try to connect to my wifi, give-up, and then get stuck in a loop of trying to send mqtt messages and failing.

I had another Netgear router here so I decided to install it and see if it made a difference. It is a Netgear AX1800 which is a newer router compared to the TP-Link.  Now the ratgdo connects to the router without issue (within seconds) and reconnects easily if reset.  I can access the settings page easily and MQTT is sending and receiving messages.  I also have an IP address assigned to the ratgdo that is within the router's list of addresses. 

I'm not sure why the previous router was causing issues. I have other ESP32 boards that I have been using for years for MQTT and those work flawlessly with my old router (and my Netgear as well).

I hope this helps someone.