WLAN issue: wlan auto-connects upon entering function body

[yoplocheo]

I have a Pycom Lopy 4 that will recieve sensor readings from another MCU and structure the received data before sending it on to an MQTT server. To achieved that, I initialised the WLAN mode of my LoPy4 to 'STA_AP'.

However, I realised that when i attempted a wlan.disconnect(), and my code enters a function block to deal with the data, wlan.isconnected() returns True again! I know this because I placed a few print statements within the function body to check for connectivity. Below is my code:

import usocket
from network import WLAN
import ustruct
from mqtt import MQTTClient
import machine

sensor_dict = {
    0x77 : "bme280"
    # Add more sensors here #
    }

wlan = WLAN()

## Set static IP address for server
wlan.ifconfig(id = 1, config=('192.168.0.104', '255.255.255.0', '192.168.0.1', '192.168.0.1'))

## Set WLAN mode to STA_AP (station & access point)
print("Setting up wlan access point...")
wlan.init(mode = WLAN.STA_AP, ssid = 'server_layer1', auth = (WLAN.WPA2, 'Password123'), channel=7, antenna=WLAN.INT_ANT)
print("wlan mode set up: with WPA2 auth\n")


## -----------------------------This is the function block---------------------------------- ##
def send_data(data_raw):
    print("Unpacking raw data...")
    data = ustruct.unpack('lifff', data_raw)
    loc, sensor_type, temp, press, hum = data

    if wlan.isconnected():
        print("connected1")

    ## Connect to internet
    wlan.connect("Name", auth=(WLAN.WPA2, "hahahahaha"), timeout=5000)
    if wlan.isconnected():
        print("connected3")
    while not wlan.isconnected():
        machine.idle()
    print("Connected to WiFi\n")

    print("Sending data up to MQTT server...")
    client = MQTTClient("xxx123", "io.adafruit.com",user="yoplo", password="xxx123", port=1883)
    client.connect()

    client.publish(topic="yoplo/feeds/{}/{}/temp".format(loc, sensor_dict[sensor_type]), msg=temp, retain = True)

## ---------------------------------End of function block------------------------------------- ##

UDP_IP = "0.0.0.0"
UDP_PORT = 6006

## Set up UDP socket and bind
sock = usocket.socket(usocket.AF_INET,usocket.SOCK_DGRAM) ## UDP
sock.bind((UDP_IP, UDP_PORT))
print('Socket binded.')

data_raw, addr = sock.recvfrom(24) ## buffer size is 24 bytes

## -----------------------------------ran wlan.disconnect() here--------------------------------##
wlan.disconnect()

if wlan.isconnected():
    print("connected2")

send_data(data_raw)
machine.deepsleep(10)

My output was:

Setting up wlan access point...
wlan mode set up: with WPA2 auth

Socket binded.

raw data payload: b'q\x01\x00\x00w\x00\x00\x00\xe1z\xd0Aq\xedzD\x14\xae^B'
source:  ('192.168.0.105', 49258)
connected2
Unpacking raw data...


connected1
connected3
Connected to WiFi

Sending data up to MQTT server...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "main.py", line 65, in <module>
  File "main.py", line 43, in send_data
  File "/flash/lib/mqtt.py", line 66, in connect
OSError: [Errno 113] EHOSTUNREACH
Pycom MicroPython 1.18.2.r6 [v1.8.6-849-a210e85] on 2019-05-13; LoPy4 with ESP32
Type "help()" for more information.

'connected1' and 'connected3' were printed, although 'connected2' was not printed. Not sure why, appreciate any assistance!