Arduino-esp32: WiFi SoftAP not working?

[beegee-tokyo]

Hardware:

Board: ESP32 Dev Module
Core Installation/update date: 04.September.2018
IDE name: Arduino IDE _1.8.5_
Flash Frequency: 80Mhz
Upload Speed: 115200

ESP32 core V1.0.0 installed over boards manager from
https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json

Description:

Simple examples for WiFi SoftAP seem to work (no error indicated), but the SoftAP is not showing (Tried several Android devices, PC Wifi).
The SSID is not hidden, even if I try to add the AP manually, none of the devices can see or connect to the SoftAP.

I tried on 2 different ESP32 modules, but get the same result.
Both modules WiFi are working, I can connect to any of my WiFi AP's here with *WiFi.begin("sta","pw");. Just the SoftAP seems not to work at all.

Tried as well with
WiFi.mode(WIFI_AP_STA); or WiFi.mode(WIFI_AP);
before calling WiFi.softAP, but no change.

Tried as well with

IPAddress softApIp = {10, 0, 1, 1};
IPAddress softApGw = {10, 0, 1, 1};
IPAddress softApMa = {255, 255, 255, 0};
WiFi.softAPConfig(softApIp, softApGw, softApMa);

before calling WiFi.softAP, but no change.

Tried as well WiFi.softAP(ssid, password, 5, 0, 4); but no change.

Tried as well with the developer version of the ESP32 core (https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_dev_index.json V1.0.0-rc4), but no change.

Sketch:

#include <WiFi.h>

const char *ssid = "MyESP32AP";
const char *password = "testpassword";

void setup(){
  Serial.begin(115200);
// WiFi.mode(WIFI_AP_STA);
  WiFi.softAP(ssid, password);
//  WiFi.softAP(ssid, password, 5, 0, 4);

  Serial.println();
  Serial.print("IP address: ");
  Serial.println(WiFi.softAPIP());
  Serial.print("[WIF] SoftAP MAC: ");
  Serial.println(WiFi.softAPmacAddress());
}

void loop(){}

Debug Messages:

ets Jun  8 2016 00:22:57

rst:0x1 (POWERON_RESET),boot:0x13 (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
ets Jun  8 2016 00:22:57

rst:0x10 (RTCWDT_RTC_RESET),boot:0x13 (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:0x3fff0018,len:4
load:0x3fff001c,len:952
load:0x40078000,len:6084
load:0x40080000,len:7936
entry 0x40080310
[D][WiFiGeneric.cpp:345] _eventCallback(): Event: 0 - WIFI_READY
[D][WiFiGeneric.cpp:345] _eventCallback(): Event: 13 - AP_START

IP address: 192.168.4.1
[WIF] SoftAP MAC: 24:0A:C4:81:CE:9D

[Sauro98]

This is the code I am using:

const IPAddress apIP = IPAddress(192, 168, 4, 1);
static const byte DNS_PORT = 53;

DNSServer dnsServer;

WiFi.mode(WIFI_AP);
WiFi.softAPConfig(apIP, apIP, IPAddress(255, 255, 255, 0));
WiFi.softAP(mac_name, "password");

dnsServer.start(DNS_PORT, "*", apIP);

[MarkusAD]

AP works here, but trying WiFi.softAP(ssid, password, 5, 0, 4); it always shows up as channel 1, no encryption, ssid = ESP_###### (last 3 bytes of mac address). Tried using WiFi.disconnect(true); and also did an erase_flash, same results. Before the erase_flash it was always stuck on the channel it was previously associated with as a station.

[beegee-tokyo]

@MarkyAD @Sauro98

Thanks for the quick reply.
Erasing the whole flash and then reprogramming did the trick. But as you said, whatever is used as SSID, it ends up with ESP_######.

[Sauro98]

Weird, I set my AP ssid to be the whole mac address and that is actually what I get

[beegee-tokyo]

I try this:

// Start local AP portal
uint8_t resultAP = 0;
if (WiFi.softAPConfig(
        IPAddress(10, 0, 1, 1),
        IPAddress(10, 0, 1, 1),
        IPAddress(255, 255, 255, 0)))
{
    char softApName[] = "RS-xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx";
    sprintf(softApName, "RS-%s", WiFi.macAddress().c_str());
#ifdef WIF_DBG
    SerialCMD.print("[WIFI] Starting SoftAP: ");
    SerialCMD.println(softApName);
#endif
    WiFi.softAP(softApName, "evlaser");
}

And get ESP_81CE9D as AP name.

[MarkusAD]

@beegee-tokyo I still think there is some issue with WiFi.softAP(), no matter what channel I choose its always on ch.1 and it never lets me set my own ssid. Perhaps something introduced in the last couple months of commits. I'm using core from only a couple commits back from current git.

[beegee-tokyo]

@MarkyAD
For the channel, I don't care, because I use AP and STA mode in parallel. So the AP channel MUST be the same as the STA.
But for the AP name it is annoying.

[Sauro98]

It works for me, but I was at commit e157ec06a78d6abeaed1aaa9745cea6d7e155490. I pulled the latest changes and it is still working. I even tried with the ssid you provided, for safety, and that works too

[MarkusAD]

Found it! @beegee-tokyo choose a password thats at least 8 characters.

[beegee-tokyo]

Hahaha, found the same just now:

strlen(passphrase) < 8 in WiFiAP.cpp

[MarkusAD]

Maybe it shouldn't just fail and return there like that. I can see WPA2 depending on a decent passphrase, but maybe falling back to no encryption like it does a couple lines down from there would be better. At any rate, we should've been checking the return value of softAP() to see it was returning false. ;-P