[SOLVED] help with simple IP Ping program

Hi All,

This is my first project and first post on here. I have tried to create a simple program that would ping the Google DNS server and if this fails a set number of times then it is to switch a relay off, then back on. (the point being to power cycle my modem) Once I get this working the plan was to have 2 pings with the other being to a local IP address on my network and to toggle a second relay if that ping fails.

So far I have the below code but all it does is connect to the network and then turn the relay off after a few seconds. In the serial monitor I don't get any attempt for a ping at all. I'm guessing its to do with my 'while' loop being wrong but I'm far too new to this to see my error. This is going on a NodeMCU (ESP8266) programmed with the Arduino IDE.

Can someone please help me out?

/*
 this program checks to see if it can Ping the Google DNS server and if the Ping fails
 'pingIP1failmax' times in a row if will turn relay 1 OFF for 10 seconds and then back ON.  It will 
 do a simlar thing with relay 2 if it cant Ping the HassIO server IP.

*/

#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <ESP8266Ping.h>
//#include <ESP8266Ping.impl.h>


// Update these with values suitable for your network.

const char* ssid = "SSID";
const char* password = "PASSWORD";

const IPAddress remote_ip1(8, 8, 8, 8);
const IPAddress remote_ip2(192, 168, 0, 13);

int pingIP1count = 0;
int pingIP1fails = 0;
int pingIP1failmax = 0;
int pingIP2count = 0;
int pingIP2fails = 0;
int pingIP2failmax = 0;

WiFiClient espClient;

void setup() {
  pinMode(5, OUTPUT);     // Initialize the GPIO5 pin as an output
  pinMode(4, OUTPUT);     // Initialize the GPIO4 pin as an output
  digitalWrite(5, LOW);   // Turn GPIO5 on (Note that LOW is the voltage level
    // but actually the Relay is on; this is because
    // it is acive low on the ESP-01)
  digitalWrite(4, LOW);
  Serial.begin(115200);
  setup_wifi();

}

void setup_wifi() {

  delay(10);
  // We start by connecting to a WiFi network
  Serial.println();
  Serial.print("Connecting to ");
  Serial.println(ssid);

  WiFi.begin(ssid, password);

  while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
    delay(500);
    Serial.print(".");
  }

  randomSeed(micros());

  Serial.println("");
  Serial.println("WiFi connected");
  Serial.println("IP address: ");
  Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());
}

void loop() { 
while(pingIP1fails < pingIP1failmax){
  Serial.print("Pinging Google DNS Server ");
  Serial.println(remote_ip1);

  if(Ping.ping(remote_ip1)){
    Serial.println("Success!!");
    delay(600);
  }
    else {
    Serial.println("Error :(");
    ++pingIP1fails;  // = ++pingIP2fails;
    }
}      
digitalWrite(5, HIGH);   // Turn GPIO5 off
delay(10);
digitalWrite(5, LOW);   // Turn GPIO5 on
pingIP2fails = 0;

}

OK, so I realised I had accidentally left the 'pingIP1failmax' equal to zero so it would drop out of the 'while' loop straight away. I have changed that to 3 as I had originally planned and now the program works... except that it constantly retries the Ping whereas I wanted it to delay for 5 mins before trying again. Why would the delay in the above code not be working?

EDIT: I'm an idiot. I was still thinking of a different programming language where a delay is in seconds, not milliseconds. Changed the delay time and things are looking good.

I have fixed up my code so thought I'd post it here for thread completeness if anyone else is interested later (although I haven't yet implemented the second relay, that's still to be done).

#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <ESP8266Ping.h>
//#include <ESP8266Ping.impl.h>


// Update these with values suitable for your network.

const char* ssid = "xxSSIDxx";
const char* password = "xxPASSWORDxx";

const IPAddress remote_ip1(8, 8, 8, 8);
const IPAddress remote_ip2(192, 168, 0, 13);

int pingIP1count = 0;
int pingIP1fails = 0;
int pingIP1failmax = 3;
int pingIP2count = 0;
int pingIP2fails = 0;
int pingIP2failmax = 3;
int retryTime = 300000;
int retryTimeMins = retryTime / 60000;  //convert time to minutes

WiFiClient espClient;

void setup() {
  pinMode(5, OUTPUT);     // Initialize the GPIO5 pin as an output
  pinMode(4, OUTPUT);     // Initialize the GPIO4 pin as an output
  digitalWrite(5, LOW);   // Turn GPIO5 on (Note that LOW is the voltage level
    // but actually the Relay is on; this is because
    // it is acive low on the ESP-01)
  digitalWrite(4, LOW);
  Serial.begin(115200);
  setup_wifi();

}

void setup_wifi() {

  delay(10);
  // We start by connecting to a WiFi network
  Serial.println();
  Serial.print("Connecting to ");
  Serial.println(ssid);

  WiFi.begin(ssid, password);

  while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
    delay(500);
    Serial.print(".");
  }

  randomSeed(micros());

  Serial.println("");
  Serial.println("WiFi connected");
  Serial.println("IP address: ");
  Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());
}

void loop() { 
while(pingIP1fails < pingIP1failmax){
  delay(retryTime);       
  Serial.print("Pinging Google DNS Server ");
  Serial.println(remote_ip1);

  if(Ping.ping(remote_ip1)){
    Serial.print("Success! Will try ping again in ");
    Serial.print(retryTimeMins);
    Serial.println(" minutes");
  }
    else {
    Serial.println("PING FAILED!");
    Serial.print("Incrementing pingIP1fail count to ");
    ++pingIP1fails;     // Increment pingIP1fails counter
    Serial.println(pingIP1fails);
    }
}      
Serial.println("Switching relay 1 OFF for 10 seconds to reboot router and resetting pingIP1fails to zero");
digitalWrite(5, HIGH);  // Turn GPIO5 off
delay(10000);           // Delay 10 seconds
digitalWrite(5, LOW);   // Turn GPIO5 on
pingIP1fails = 0;

}

This is exactly what i'm looking for since my modem constantly get disconnected and a simple power on power off will make it online again.

May i know the list of hardware. I will try to do this project also

thanks to the author , i modified the original code, add some documentation , and published it on github

many thanks sparkydave