@cjamoody, your topic has been moved to a more suitable location on the forum. Installation and Troubleshooting is not for problems with (nor for advise on) your project 
See About the Installation & Troubleshooting category.
I'm not really familiar with the ESP8266 so there is a risk that I'm writing something stupid
- There is an exception decoder that you can download; I've never used it but it should give some form of human readable data.
- If not mistaken, there are clones that don't have the amount of memory that is specified. The fact that a Lolin Mini works but the clones don't might point in that direction and can be the cause of your problem.