Anyone can reproduce the `reboot_timeout` low level IP stack problem?

  • reboot_timeout (Optional, Time): The amount of time to wait before rebooting when no WiFi connection exists. Can be disabled by setting this to 0s, but note that the low level IP stack currently seems to have issues with WiFi where a full reboot is required to get the interface back working. Defaults to 15min. Does not apply when in access point mode.

I’m quite unnerved by the way the documentations for reboot_timeout blame the current (when was current?) ESP framework but does not point to any open issue or reproduction steps. Any one knows?

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To me, it sounds like if you set the time out to zero and then the board loses it’s wifi connection, even if the wifi connection is restored the boards interface(web server?) will still be unreachable until a restart.

Have you set a board to zero and then dropped it’s wifi connection, to see what happens when the connection is restored?

I would ask the devs on Discord about this one…

I have not tried anything as I’m trying to observe what the exact problem is, it appears that:

  1. I set my Beken running ESPHome with reboot_timeout: 0s
  2. Brought down my wifi for 15 mins and up again
  3. The LEDs on ESPHome blinks once every cycle indicating there is a problem
  4. Yet, after a few days, my router page still do not show these devices acquire an IP address
  5. It is hard to tell if the ESPHome did not try or could not get an IP
  6. But it certainly knew something was wrong, probably from the fact it did not receive any incoming connections

Which brings up the questions:

  1. How often does ESPHome try to re-acquire an IP? This feels like the prime suspect since the docs imply the problem was intermittent, but I have been able to consistently reproduce the problem
  2. How often does HA try to connect to ESPHome devices? (Probably less than 15 mins since the default ESPHome tries to reboot itself every 15 mins)

At this stage, I think it might be helpful to eliminate #7 by making the LEDs blink twice every cycle if it has an IP but no connection with HA

mqtt:
  broker: x.x.x.x

In the next phase, I’m adding the above to observe behavior (without removing api)

  1. After adding mqtt (a change in ESPHome config), I no longer have to power cycle my house for HA to see these beken ESPHomes devices
  2. This strongly indicates whatever problem there might be, resides in ESPHome and not in the low level IP stack as claimed