Nano Connect RP2040 Requests Error

[dedSyn4ps3]

Firmware

Adafruit CircuitPython 6.2.0-beta.2 on 2021-05-28; Arduino Nano Connect RP2040
Adafruit CircuitPython 7 built on 2021-05-27; Arduino Nano Connect RP2040

Code/REPL

--- snip ---
print("Connected to", str(esp.ssid, "utf-8"), "\tRSSI:", esp.rssi)
print("My IP address is", esp.pretty_ip(esp.ip_address))

print()
print("Fetching json from Initial State")
r = requests.get("https://api.init.st/data/v1/events/latest?accessKey=abcd1234&bucketKey=efg5678") # This is line 52
print(r.text)
r.close()
--- snip ---

Behavior

Firmware vers. bytearray(b'1.4.5\x00')
MAC addr: ['0x6c', '0xb9', '0x2f', '0xa8', '0xcc', '0x84']
Connecting to AP...
Connected to GL-AR-Guest 	RSSI: -64
My IP address is 192.168.9.222

Fetching json from Initial State
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "code.py", line 52, in <module>
  File "adafruit_requests.py", line 684, in get
  File "adafruit_requests.py", line 562, in request
  File "adafruit_requests.py", line 429, in _get_socket
RuntimeError: Sending request failed

Description

• Error establishing socket to make request...
• Only happens when making a request (so far, haven't tested additional cases)...
• uBlox Co-processor makes successful connection to AP, so no issue there..only when attempting to make a request...

Additional Info

Prior to the official release on the Circuitpython.org website for the Arduino Nano Connect RP2040, I had compiled the "Absolute Newest" testing branch for the board right after the pull request was made and added it. I compiled everything and flashed it onto the nano connect.

I2C, SPI, and all the other basic protocols worked just fine, and I noticed that the release version was for circuitpython 7, so I went ahead and downloaded both the compiled .mpy bundle, as well as the .py bundle to test making web requests with both. Each time the board would successfully connect to wifi, retrieve an IP Address via DHCP...but then would fail upon trying to establish a proper socket.

The next day, I saw the official release for the board on circuitpython.org, but this time using the version 6.x of the firmware. I downloaded that, re-flashed my board, and then downloaded the bundles for the 6.x version of the firmware. Once again, there is a failure to establish a proper socket when attempting to make a request using the 'adafruit_requests' library.

I have not had the time to dig into the library code to locate what exactly seems to be the issue, but am attaching a screen snip of the debugger lines showing where in the code the problem seems to stem from. I realize that this board is super new, and development is ongoing. I'll keep tinkering with it, but also have issues using the C/C++ side of things as well with the MQTT library for Adafruit IO (which I have made a post about on the Adafruit Forums).

[ladyada]

what if you use the URL / pinout / code from
#4802
(without the OLED display)

[dedSyn4ps3]

Thanks for the super fast response!

That was exactly where I pulled the pinout from for my code, was from your wifi example. I first started with that exact code, minus the OLED, to retrieve the DOGE coin value. The URL gave me the same error, so I thought I would try and use a different URL and pull the sensor values from my Initial State dashboard like I do with several other boards I have.

All of them keep giving a socket error whenever trying to make the request..

[dedSyn4ps3]

@ladyada , I've narrowed down the requests issue. It definitely seems to be an SSL/TLS issue with the request and socket establishment. I ran a small webserver on my phone that I've used in the past to serve code files up real fast, and it uses basic HTTP. The Nano Connect had no issues retrieving the contents from it!

[dedSyn4ps3]

@ladyada , I have also just tested and noticed the exact same behavior using MQTT. I adjusted the RP2040 pubsub code for Adafruit IO to use the proper pinout for the Nano Connect, and once again experienced failure trying to connect to AIO using MQTTS port 8883.

As soon as I manually added the standard port 1883 when creating the mqtt_client object, all works fine once again! Definitely something up when trying to use TLS...

[dedSyn4ps3]

@tannewt @ladyada ,

I have been emailing back and forth with Arduino about the TLS issues experienced between both languages. The issue seems to somewhat be corrected as of right now. The WifiSSLClient sketch that I run is now able to connect and retrieve the site data for a google search query over HTTPS. The oddity is that in the process of getting the code to work, I switched the access point I was using which no longer used '8.8.8.8' and '8.8.4.4' as it's DNS servers, and started having success running the sketch.

I hopped over to circuitpython on the board and re-ran the DOGE coin example code (which uses an https url), and it works! I got super excited so I changed up the url to use the Initial State API to query sensor data from my dashboard, and you guessed it...socket error just like in my screenshot above. I have even tried using the basic Adafruit IO API query with my key included as a header....and it too still fails.

One last thing I tried to do was load up the MQTT code displayed above, but using secure port 8883....fails still :'(

[tannewt]

@brentru Is this the IO cert issue in the nina FW?

[brentru]

@tannewt Yes, I believe this is an issue with Arduino's nina-fw not containing the root cert. for Adafruit IO, since @dedSyn4ps3 's sketch works properly w/insecure port 1883 (non-SSL connection).

I've discussed this issue with dedsym4ps3 on the forums as well (https://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=179682#p876969) and encouraged them to either contact arduino asking for the inclusion of our root cert in their nina-fw, or have them post up on the forums/issues and I'll assist.

It doesn't seem like a CircuitPython issue, it's a nina-fw issue.

[dedSyn4ps3]

@brentru I sent an email to arduino last week in regards to adding the root cert, but have not heard back. I'm not sure if this is because they closed the issue ticket that I originally filed for the https issue...I may have to reopen a new ticket, not sure.

I know that from prior experience using the Seeed Wio Terminal in the Arduino IDE, I would have to manually add the root cert in my sketch for proper HTTPS comms to whatever site I was trying to communicate with. I have not had the time between work and mobile app dev to really look into the circuitpy docs, but is there a temporary solution to include either a byte array or dictionary variable holding the certificate info, then use that with the requests client? I thinking along the lines of how Golang programs I've written load a root CA for client/server comms...

[anecdata]

Can the Adafruit fork of NINA be flashed onto the Nano (are the U-blox® pins the same)?

[brentru]

@anecdata I do not believe so, they've done some upstream PRs specifically for the RP2040 Connect.

[ngdrascal]

I was experiencing this exact problem. Some HTTPS websites worked fine and others issued a traceback originating in _get_socket. After going to Arduino's IO Cloud website (create.arduino.cc/iot) and updating the firmware for the u-blox the error went away. The device came with NINA firmware version 1.4.5. The upgraded version is 1.4.8.