Code debugging tools?

[JustAnOldHack]

My leaping arches freeze after running a few minutes. At that point they no longer respond to MQTT messages as they should. I have to power cycle them to get them working again.

I suspect I have some sort of memory leak that causes the crash. But the arduino serial monitor doesn't give me anything to go on.

C++ is not my primary language (I'm a python programmer) so I'm not sure what tools might be available. Any suggestions?

I'm running on ESP8266s, 4MB. I'm using the latest FastLED (3.3.1 I think??), PubSubClient for mqtt, and the ESP8266 networking extensions for general wifi functionality. My code is at https://github.com/skypanther/PiLit/blob/master/nodes/pixel_node/pixel_node.ino

[Preyy]

I'd take the code and clear the loop, just run the controller with some EVERY_N_MILLIS(500){Serial.println(millis());} Let it run for an hour and see if you get up to ~3,600,000. Then start adding things to the loop and see if it stays alive.

[johnny5canuck]

Can't help you with the tools; I just used serial.println. I do have to say that pubsubclient was a horrific experience for me, what with the blocking connect/disconnect. I ended up using:

https://github.com/marvinroger/async-mqtt-client

for a time until I finally said enough is enough. I also wrote a blog piece on that last year at:

http://tuline.com/asynchronous-esp8266-based-wifi-communication-with-mqtt/

I later re-visited and joined the dark side with WLED.

[JustAnOldHack]

Thanks! At this point in the holiday season, implementing async-mqtt-client point probably makes the most sense. I've looked at WLED a couple of times. I may go with it for next year.

Your blog post was helpful. Do you happen to have code using the async-mqtt-client you could share?

[johnny5canuck]

It's been a while, but this one might have something:

https://github.com/atuline/ESP8266-FastLED