ESP32-WROVER-E not working

[theooze]

New ESP32-WROVER-E. I tried flashing it with the ESP-WROVER-KIT NightStrip and Spectrum images w/ the same result. The flash from the website seems to complete - it says installed, but then nothing. Console log shows nothing. If i try and reboot from the console/logs page I get:

rst:0x10 (RTCWDT_RTC_RESET),boot:0xb (HSPI_FLASH_BOOT)
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
ets Jul 29 2019 12:21:46

similar w/ images for 'mesmerizer' and 'esp32'. Am i using the right device type ?

[robertlipe]

https://documentation.espressif.com/esp32-wrover-e_esp32-wrover-ie_datasheet_en.pdf shows that's a ESP32-D0WD-V3 or ESP32-D0WDR2-V3, which is what's on mesmerizer, but unless you've wired up a HUB75 interface and forgotten to mention it, it's highly unlikely that you're going to succeed with a mesmerizer binary, but you're failing way before that.

The basic issue is that the chip is being released from a reset, is jumping into the flash, and is getting back nonsense which it then dutifully attempts to execute. It makes no progress, so the WatchDogTimer pops an interrupt from the RealTimeClock to reset the part. This then repeats.

Possible causes (there are surely more):

• you're using esptool (or similar) to load the code at a wrong address. Your code might might it, but it's not where the CPU is jumping to, so it doesn't count.
• Misconfigured Flash speed. Misconfiguring the SPI bus will cause it to clock data out in a different way than what was put in, so it just gets back nonsense.
• Attached hardware squishes signals needed for correct functioning. Breadboarding or soldering up pins that are used in the strapping processes for PSRAM/Flash SPI can cause this.

Prescription:

• Erase the flash on the device. This will also confirm some amount of functionality of the device. (Debugging broken hardware stinks.) See recent discussion at espconnect: new tool for care and feeding of your ESP32 menagerie #794 for a pointy clicky way to identify and erase ESP32s.
• Use the web installer to install our simplest original ESP32 binary: 'demo'. That build just clocks out WS-2812 data on PIN5 (if not connected, the bits just pile up in the floor. You can vacuum them up safely.) YOu should see wiggling on GPIO5 on your oscilloscope and you should see some amount of debug chatter in the serial debug console.

From there, you can either build up your hardware to exactly match one of our ~50 projects (look in platformio.ini and include/globals.h) or you can tune platformio.ini to match your pin configurations (LED_PIN0, INPUT_PIN for your IR remote, audio inputs for mic pins and types, etc.) and effect set (EFFECTS_SPECTRUM, EFFECTS_DEMO - honestly, these make more sense when paired with src/effects.cpp)

But you have to get the chip to boot first. You're hitting the guardrails way before you've ever executed a single opcode produced by anyone here. You need to be able to boot the equivalent of a "hello world" blinky program. Do that first with your device, then execute our version of 'hello, world" 'demo' which just vomits rainbows out GPIO5.

If this help isn't enough, search for the above error because this is actually nothing NightDriverLED0-specific.

Keep us posted

[theooze]

So, this is from the kit I got off of Dave's ebay site for the mesmerizer. It's not something I'm building from scratch. I have the same issue w/ the demo image, and I'm using the web installer.

[robertlipe]

Mentioning that, instead of the model of a module on the board, would have been helpful...

The basic advice holds. Erase the flash. Use the correct image for the board. In your case, that's the "Mesmerizer" image, not demo, not spectrum. Use the web installer as described in the doc.

[theooze]

The erase seems to work, it moves on to 'installing', the tx/rx lights on the board flash, the installer completes, wraps up, then when i go back w/ the web installer to enable wifi, that option is not available, just again to reflash w/ the same image. i'm using the cp210x universal windows driver v11.5.0