ESP32-S3 WiFi sending not working properly

[petersen1]

I have the raw ESP32-S3, and with a self-made Inverted-F antenna.
I can scan for other WiFis and can find quite a few with okay signal strength.
I can not, however, connect to any WiFi. It tries to connect forever. Even when I get really really close to the router.
Also, creating an AP does not give an error, but the AP does not become visible when scanning with other devices.

I assume there is some error that prevents me from *sending* anything.
What could be the issue?

[petersen1]

So, apparently, sending *can* work. So I saw the AP appear once during scan with a computer. But after resetting the device, it does not show anymore. And connecting to it did not work anyways.

So to compare, I bought two Adafruit QT Py ESP32-S3 boards, which also have a raw chip instead of a module.
I desoldered its antenna, matching network, almost all 3V3 caps. Also one of the caps on the 40MHz crystal. It is still working.

The only major difference is now probably the 3V3 supply voltage and the crystal itself.