In a bit of a quandry... should I update the version of ESP Easy? What will it break...

[mattlward]

I have a few Wemos D1's doing tasks for me around the house. Mainly remote temp and humidity sensors with displays the sensors feed Home Assistant data via MQTT. That is all fairly basic except that I have one unit that does not display, but is a source of data feeding all of my units with displays. I bring in 6 MQTT variables and the convert them to dummy variables that are sent out over the UDP PTP network to the devices with displays. I had to stop upgrading this unit because later firmwares would not allow for 2 generic quad MQTT importers. I know that the system will not look or feel anything like the firmwares I am running currently as I am sure there have been many changes over the last couple of years. But, can I accomplish the same function I have now or should I just stick with the old versions I am running and be happy?

The slot 4 MQTT import allows me to remotely reboot and request IP addresses for the devices that do not send the dummy data. On the device that sends dummy data the MQTT slot 4 and slot 5 imports the data from my HA server.

So, I did try today to take one of the receivers to a more modern version and the PTP imports stopped working and I could not see a reason for the failure.

Receivers are running the following versions:
mega-20190301
mega-20190301
mega_20210114 - no display and no PTP data receive.
mega-20210503 - display but no PTP data receive.
mega-20210503 - Data MQTT receive and PTP transmitter.

sender1.jpg (232.28 KiB) Viewed 713 times

rec1.jpg (241.52 KiB) Viewed 713 times

[TD-er]

It is nearly impossible to tell what may have been wrong in the 2021 versions you tested.
A lot of issues have been fixed since and it might be possible some other things are broken...

The main change since really old builds is the update to a later SDK version, which does cause WiFi issues on some modules (have spent 1000's of hours on WiFi issues, sadly)
Also the more recent SDKs tend to use more resources, combined with newly added features in ESPEasy.
This may lead to less free memory compared to really old builds.

I know that in fixes made after 2021, the MQTT import plugin has been improved quite a bit in efficiency.

When in doubt, I suggest to backup the settings file (config.dat) so you can always go back to a previous setup.

One thing to keep in mind when making such a large jump in versions is that the SDK does store WiFi calibration settings in a different spot on the flash.
So when you're seeing worse WiFi connection stability, you may want to consider wiping the entire flash using a 'blank' image and then flash the new (or old) firmware to it and then restore the settings file.