Pycom Fipy can see WiFi but not connect

[Daniel Near]

My co worker has a Fipy that he was working with, and it stopped connecting to his home Wifi, so he passed it to me to try and troubleshoot. I took it to work, where we have a different Wifi network, and I tried manually connecting by REPL
It fails to connect to either of the 2g networks I have passwords for. I tried reflashing with the latest firmware (it was already on the latest 1.20.2.r4) and included the 'erase all' option (is this the same as doing erase all from the CLI tool?)

I also tried import pycom;pycom.nvs_set('pybytes_debug',99) in REPL but still don't see any good clues as to why it won't connect.. Any thoughts?

rst:0x1 (POWERON_RESET),boot:0x12 (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
configsip: 0, SPIWP:0xee
clk_drv:0x00,q_drv:0x00,d_drv:0x00,cs0_drv:0x00,hd_drv:0x00,wp_drv:0x00
mode:DIO, clock div:1
load:0x3fff8020,len:8
load:0x3fff8028,len:2128
load:0x4009fa00,len:19760
entry 0x400a05bc
{'wifi': {'ssid': 'belkin.179', 'password': 'pAsscod3'}, 'pybytes_autostart': True, 'username': 'dnear@fitz-thors.com', 'cfg_msg': 'Pybytes configuration read from /flash/pybytes_config.json', 'server': 'mqtt.pybytes.pycom.io', 'lte': {'apn': '', 'cid': 0, 'reset': False, 'carrier': '', 'band': 0, 'type': ''}, 'ssl': False, 'device_id': 'c5e96abc-79a8-4172-9922-d0c738d976ff', 'network_preferences': ['wifi'], 'dump_ca': False, 'wlan_antenna': 0, 'ota_server': {'port': 443, 'domain': 'software.pycom.io'}}
 ssl_params={'ca_certs': '/flash/cert/pycom-ca.pem'}
LIS2HH12 not imported
 ssl_params={'ca_certs': '/flash/cert/pycom-ca.pem'} 
WMAC: 240AC4C79888
Firmware: 1.20.2.r4
Pybytes: 1.6.1
{'wifi': {'ssid': 'belkin.179', 'password': 'pAsscod3'}, 'pybytes_autostart': True, 'username': 'dnear@fitz-thors.com', 'cfg_msg': 'Pybytes configuration read from /flash/pybytes_config.json', 'server': 'mqtt.pybytes.pycom.io', 'lte': {'apn': '', 'cid': 0, 'reset': False, 'carrier': '', 'band': 0, 'type': ''}, 'ssl': False, 'device_id': 'c5e96abc-79a8-4172-9922-d0c738d976ff', 'network_preferences': ['wifi'], 'dump_ca': False, 'wlan_antenna': 0, 'ota_server': {'port': 443, 'domain': 'software.pycom.io'}}
Attempting to connect with network wifi
Initialized watchdog for WiFi and LTE connection with timeout 1260000 ms
WLAN connected? False
Wifi connection attempt: 1
WLAN connected? False
(ssid='belkin.179', bssid=b"\xc0V'\xd7\xd1y", sec=3, channel=2, rssi=-58)
(ssid='ATT7JQgpPi', bssid=b'\xf8\xf52\x11.\x00', sec=3, channel=1, rssi=-67)
(ssid='FTE-guest', bssid=b'\xf6\x92\xbf\x95\x88]', sec=0, channel=6, rssi=-70)
(ssid='FTE', bssid=b'\xf4\x92\xbf\xa5\x88]', sec=3, channel=6, rssi=-70)
(ssid='FTE', bssid=b'$ZLk\x9e\x00', sec=3, channel=11, rssi=-77)
Connecting with belkin.179 and pAsscod3
Wifi connection attempt: 2
WLAN connected? False
(ssid='belkin.179', bssid=b"\xc0V'\xd7\xd1y", sec=3, channel=2, rssi=-65)
(ssid='ATT7JQgpPi', bssid=b'\xf8\xf52\x11.\x00', sec=3, channel=1, rssi=-69)
(ssid='FTE', bssid=b'\xf4\x92\xbf\xa5\x88]', sec=3, channel=6, rssi=-70)
(ssid='FTE-guest', bssid=b'\xf6\x92\xbf\x95\x88]', sec=0, channel=6, rssi=-71)
(ssid='FTE', bssid=b'$ZLk\x9e\x00', sec=3, channel=11, rssi=-78)
(ssid='FTE-guest', bssid=b'&ZL\x1b\x9e\x00', sec=0, channel=11, rssi=-78)
Connecting with belkin.179 and pAsscod3
Wifi connection attempt: 3
WLAN connected? False
(ssid='belkin.179', bssid=b"\xc0V'\xd7\xd1y", sec=3, channel=2, rssi=-64)
(ssid='ATT7JQgpPi', bssid=b'\xf8\xf52\x11.\x00', sec=3, channel=1, rssi=-69)
(ssid='FTE', bssid=b'\xf4\x92\xbf\xa5\x88]', sec=3, channel=6, rssi=-70)
(ssid='FTE-guest', bssid=b'\xf6\x92\xbf\x95\x88]', sec=0, channel=6, rssi=-70)
(ssid='FTE', bssid=b'$ZLk\x9e\x00', sec=3, channel=11, rssi=-77)
(ssid='FTE-guest', bssid=b'&ZL\x1b\x9e\x00', sec=0, channel=11, rssi=-78)
Connecting with belkin.179 and pAsscod3
Error connecting using WIFI: Connection to AP Timeout!
ERROR! Could not connect to Pybytes!
Pybytes configuration read from /flash/pybytes_config.json
Pycom MicroPython 1.20.2.r4 [v1.11-ffb0e1c] on 2021-01-12; FiPy with ESP32
Pybytes Version: 1.6.1
Type "help()" for more information.

[Daniel Near]

I'm also trying pycom.smart_config(True); and using the Pybytes iOS app

I get this

>>> pybytes.smart_config(True)
Trying previous AP details for 60 seconds...
Smart Provisioning started in the background
See https://docs.pycom.io/smart for details
Restarting smartConfig()
Received 128 from wl.events()
Restarting smartConfig()
Received 128 from wl.events()
Restarting smartConfig()
Received 128 from wl.events()
Restarting smartConfig()
Received 128 from wl.events()
Restarting smartConfig()
Received 128 from wl.events()
Restarting smartConfig()
Received 128 from wl.events()
Restarting smartConfig()
Received 128 from wl.events()
Restarting smartConfig()

but it obviously fails to connect to the Wifi while my phone does using the same credentials..

[Gijs]

Please check the documentation here https://docs.pycom.io/pybytes/smart/ concerning the smart config.

Concerning your initial issue, you might have to wait some time before the WiFi connection status will display connected, have a look at the example here: https://docs.pycom.io/tutorials/networks/wlan/#connecting-to-a-router

[Daniel Near]

@Gijs before I flash-erased my Fipy, I was using a timeout of 60000 (1 minute) and checking wlan.isconnected() and it always returned false and eventually timed out. on pybytes.pycom.io it wasn't showing the device as online. Is there anything on the Expansion Shield 3 that might block Wifi from connecting? P12 is open, but planning on using P9-11, 13,14 and 16 for SPI and I2C and have them connected to devices.

[Gijs]

the pin configurations (except for P12, as it is connected to the antenna switch) should not make a difference in WiFi connectivity. Especially as your routers' SSID already shows up in the scan, I suspect you made a mistake in the password, or choosing the correct access point (not sure if there might be multiple around you with the same SSID, you can verify that by checking the BSSID with the routers'. Perhaps you could try to connect to an access point without a password?