The ESP8266 is very powerful little module, but a very picky one as well. In working with original ESP-01 I had very limited success with it and it just acted "flakey". I do understand now what most of the issues were with this module.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/index.php/blog/show/esp8266-wifi-module-issues-i-have-had