Constant reboots when using digital pins 6 - 11 with ESP8266 devices

[PeteKnight]

When using an ESP8266 based board (NodeMCU, Wemos D1 Mini, ESP-01 etc) if a digital datastream is added which uses pin 6 to 11 the device will go through a constant cycle of connecting to Blynk then rebooting, like this…

12:50:51.658 -> [68] Connecting to REDACTED
12:50:55.902 -> [4299] Connected to WiFi
12:50:55.902 -> [4299] IP: 192.168.1.6
12:50:55.902 -> [4299] 
12:50:55.902 ->     ___  __          __
12:50:55.902 ->    / _ )/ /_ _____  / /__
12:50:55.902 ->   / _  / / // / _ \/  '_/
12:50:55.902 ->  /____/_/\_, /_//_/_/\_\
12:50:55.902 ->         /___/ v1.1.0 on ESP8266
12:50:55.902 -> 
12:50:55.902 ->  #StandWithUkraine    https://bit.ly/swua
12:50:55.902 -> 
12:50:55.902 -> 
12:50:55.902 -> [4309] Connecting to blynk.cloud:80
12:50:55.939 -> [4367] Ready (ping: 16ms).
12:51:03.761 -> 
12:51:03.761 ->  ets Jan  8 2013,rst cause:4, boot mode:(3,6)
12:51:03.761 -> 
12:51:03.761 -> wdt reset
12:51:03.761 -> load 0x4010f000, len 3460, room 16 
12:51:03.795 -> tail 4
12:51:03.795 -> chksum 0xcc
12:51:03.795 -> load 0x3fff20b8, len 40, room 4 
12:51:03.795 -> tail 4
12:51:03.795 -> chksum 0xc9
12:51:03.795 -> csum 0xc9
12:51:03.795 -> v000461e0
12:51:03.795 -> ~ld
12:51:03.829 -> [67] Connecting to REDACTED
12:51:08.104 -> [4298] Connected to WiFi
12:51:08.104 -> [4299] IP: 192.168.1.6
12:51:08.104 -> [4299] 
12:51:08.104 ->     ___  __          __
12:51:08.104 ->    / _ )/ /_ _____  / /__
12:51:08.104 ->   / _  / / // / _ \/  '_/
12:51:08.104 ->  /____/_/\_, /_//_/_/\_\
12:51:08.104 ->         /___/ v1.1.0 on ESP8266
12:51:08.104 -> 
12:51:08.104 ->  #StandWithUkraine    https://bit.ly/swua
12:51:08.104 -> 
12:51:08.104 -> 
12:51:08.104 -> [4309] Connecting to blynk.cloud:80
12:51:08.138 -> [4354] Ready (ping: 14ms).
12:51:15.968 -> 
12:51:15.968 ->  ets Jan  8 2013,rst cause:4, boot mode:(3,6)
12:51:15.968 -> 
12:51:15.968 -> wdt reset
12:51:15.968 -> load 0x4010f000, len 3460, room 16 
12:51:15.968 -> tail 4
12:51:15.968 -> chksum 0xcc
12:51:15.968 -> load 0x3fff20b8, len 40, room 4 
12:51:15.968 -> tail 4
12:51:15.968 -> chksum 0xc9
12:51:15.968 -> csum 0xc9
12:51:15.968 -> v000461e0
12:51:15.968 -> ~ld
12:51:16.036 -> [69] Connecting to REDACTED
12:51:20.285 -> [4299] Connected to WiFi
12:51:20.285 -> [4300] IP: 192.168.1.6
12:51:20.285 -> [4300] 
12:51:20.285 ->     ___  __          __
12:51:20.285 ->    / _ )/ /_ _____  / /__
12:51:20.285 ->   / _  / / // / _ \/  '_/
12:51:20.285 ->  /____/_/\_, /_//_/_/\_\
12:51:20.285 ->         /___/ v1.1.0 on ESP8266
12:51:20.285 -> 
12:51:20.285 ->  #StandWithUkraine    https://bit.ly/swua
12:51:20.285 -> 
12:51:20.285 -> 
12:51:20.285 -> [4310] Connecting to blynk.cloud:80
12:51:20.352 -> [4375] Ready (ping: 12ms).

This happens because GPIO6 to GPIO11 are reserved pins on the ESP8266 chip and are used for internal communication. These pins aren’t broken-out to physical pins on the board.
(Actually, you don’t get the constant reboots with digital pin 10, but as this pin isn’t broken-out to a pin on the board it’s of no use, and I guess it may cause other issues if it’s used).

The work-around is to simply not choose digital pin numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or 11 when creating a digital datastream for use with an ESP8266 device.
A better workaround is probably to avoid digital datastreams altogether and use virtual pins instead…

Using Virtual Pins to control physical devices

I thought I’d write a guide about how to use virtual pins with app widgets such as buttons, to control physical devices such as relays, LEDs etc… Why use virtual pins anyway? I’d always recommend using virtual pins over physical pins when developing your code. There are a number of reasons, but here are what I consider to be the main ones: Virtual pins are hardware independent. This means that it’s far easier to port your code from one hardware platform to another in future (when you realise…

I raised the issue of the discrepancy between the pins available to choose for datastreams and those actually available for the various board types over a year ago…

Can't read Digital & Analog By ESP32S board

@Dmitriy can you explain how the analog and digital datastreams are meant to work for various hardware types? If I choose ESP8266 in the web console I see 5 analog pins available numbered A0-A4. I also see pins numbered 0-14 which I assume represent the digital pins. The ESP8266 has one analog pin, A0. If I choose digital pins for the ESP8266 I see 14 pins, numbered 0-13. The ESP8266 has the following GPIOs: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 14 & 15. If I choose ESP32 then I see the same analog pin…

It seems that what is needed is something similar to what happened in Blynk Legacy - when the board type was selected for a device the list of a available Digital, Analog and Virtual pins was filtered/restricted based on the board type.

Blynk IoT allows users to select a Board Type in the Template screen, but this has no effect on the pins available when choosing Digital or Analog datasterams.

Pete.