First post, been reading and learning for months.
I have a series of Arduino projects, all running on ESP8266 and using Blynk local server. They use RTC and it works well, if a bit twitchy when first connecting as the initial sync takes a while. Syncing stored variables seems to help, so that’s not the problem.
The problem is that, when I enable SSL, RTC then fails to work. I have spent a couple of hours playing around with things until it dawned on me that I should try the Blynk-Cloud server and see if the same thing happens there - that’s the gold standard.
So I customized the ESP8266_Standalone_SSL, first just getting it working, then adding the terminal, value, and RTC.
The issue happens with Blynk-cloud server as well; I successfully connect via SSL but no time is retrieved. In my code, I output the MAC to the terminal and it never does that, even though the program is still running which I verify by having a value showing millis() and it increments.
The Serial output shows:
[3261] Connected to WiFi
[3261] IP: 172.16.0.52
[3261]
___ __ __
/ _ )/ /_ _____ / /__
/ _ / / // / _ / '/
///_, /////_
/__/ v0.4.7 on NodeMCU
[5001] Connecting to blynk-cloud.com:8441
[5407] Certificate OK
[5457] Ready (ping: 1ms).
[5925] Connecting to blynk-cloud.com:8441
[6337] Certificate OK
time should be set: 0:00
Wifi connected and starting up
[11441] Connecting to blynk-cloud.com:8441
[11848] Certificate OK
[11896] Ready (ping: 1ms).
My code is as follows:
#define BLYNK_PRINT Serial
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <BlynkSimpleEsp8266_SSL.h>
// Time - workes with Blynk to get server time
#include <TimeLib.h>
#include <WidgetRTC.h>
// You should get Auth Token in the Blynk App.
// Go to the Project Settings (nut icon).
char auth[] = "my auth";
// Your WiFi credentials.
// Set password to "" for open networks.
char ssid[] = "my ssid";
char pass[] = "my key";
// start timer to send data to blynk server
BlynkTimer timer;
// start real-time-clock widget
WidgetRTC rtc;
// Blynk virtual pin assignments
#define TERMINAL 0 // V0
#define ALERT 3 // V3
// for terminal - redirect all serial output by s/r for terminal.print and replace with terminal.print
WidgetTerminal terminal(TERMINAL);
// flip wifi mac so its in the correct order for display and usage
String ebFlipMAC(String macAddr) {
macAddr = macAddr.substring(15) + ":" + macAddr.substring(12, 15) + macAddr.substring(9, 12) + macAddr.substring(6, 9) + macAddr.substring(3, 6) + macAddr.substring(0, 2);
return (macAddr);
}
// show properly formatted time
String ebShowTime () {
if (minute() < 10) return (String(hour()) + String("\:0") + String(minute()));
else return (String(hour()) + String("\:") + String(minute()) );
}
void setup()
{
// Debug console
Serial.begin(115200);
Blynk.begin(auth, ssid, pass);
if (Blynk.connected()) {
rtc.begin();
Blynk.syncAll();
terminal.println("");
terminal.println("");
terminal.println("********************************************");
terminal.println("");
terminal.println(F("Blynk v" BLYNK_VERSION));
terminal.println(F("Unit booted, on WiFi and syncing with server"));
terminal.flush();
terminal.print("Syncing");
terminal.flush();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
delay(10);
terminal.print(".");
}
}
else {
Serial.println("WiFi not connected");
delay(2000);
return;
}
Blynk.run();
Blynk.run();
Blynk.run();
Serial.println("time should be set: " + ebShowTime());
terminal.println(" Time is prev value or 0: " + ebShowTime());
terminal.flush();
Serial.println("Wifi connected and starting up");
delay(50);
// print mac address
terminal.print("MAC: ");
terminal.println(ebFlipMAC(WiFi.macAddress()));
terminal.println("");
terminal.println("********************************************");
}
void loop()
{
Blynk.run();
//Blynk.virtualWrite(ALERT,millis()); // commented out to not flood blynk-cloud :slight_smile:
}
In the terminal on my iPhone, it never gets past printing “Syncing” - it never shows the series of dots or " time is prev or 0:" so I suspect that’s when the first rtc call fails.
Running this without SSL shows the time immediately, not 0:0, and the MAC then displays. In my actual program, I use a SimpleTimer and print the time every minute; after 12 minutes, I still had no time except 0:12 which means RTC fails.
So, am I doing something wrong, or is there some issue with RTC not working over an SSL connection?
but both suggestions were…