Hi.
What examples are you trying to run?
Can you try updating your ESP32 boards? To do that, go to Tools > Board > Boards Manager. Search for “esp32”. If there is a more recent version, update it.
Regards,
Sara

Ive tried to run both the LoRa Sender and receiver examples. I updated all my boards and libraries by searching for “updatable”. It changed the error message a little but didn’t help. I suspect my installation might be a bit screwy on this computer. I’m tempted to delete everything and start over.

I deleted the hidden folder Aduino15 and the app, then did a clean install. Added the ESP32 boards, checked the boards and library to ensure everything is up to date, tried to compile and got this error message:
Arduino: 1.8.13 (Mac OS X), Board: “TTGO LoRa32-OLED V1, 80MHz, 921600, None”

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “esptool.py”, line 57, in <module>
File “/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py”, line 389, in load_module
File “serial/tools/list_ports.py”, line 29, in <module>
File “/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py”, line 389, in load_module
File “serial/tools/list_ports_posix.py”, line 31, in <module>
File “/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py”, line 389, in load_module
File “serial/tools/list_ports_osx.py”, line 32, in <module>
ValueError: dlsym(RTLD_DEFAULT, kIOMasterPortDefault): symbol not found
Failed to execute script esptool
exit status 255
/private/var/folders/zc/tprwmm252hq4z3xbcqmp3klm0000gp/T/AppTranslocation/EE2F032B-8A5C-4F05-B344-9FAC28202D8D/d/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/arduino-builder returned 255
Error compiling for board TTGO LoRa32-OLED V1.

This report would have more information with
“Show verbose output during compilation”
option enabled in File -> Preferences.

Now I get the same error for compiling the Blink example for the reliable DOIT ESP32 board. I seem to be going backward fast.

It turns out to be an incompatibility between Mac OS Big Sur and the Expressif stable release of the ESP32 drivers.I found it by searching for this error code: ValueError: dlsym(RTLD_DEFAULT, kIOMasterPortDefault): symbol not found
I don’t understand the technical discussion here, but I did find a solution on Github by using what I assume is a beta release. This is the github topic, I’d post the URL but that’s just Github.com:
MacOS Big Sur dlsym(RTLD_DEFAULT, kIOMasterPortDefault): symbol not found (ESPTOOL-82) #540
 
This is the json that works:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_dev_index.json

Both compile and upload fine, but they don’t work, probably because this is a different version, or perhaps a counterfeit board. It’s theoretically the TTGO LoRa32-OLED V1.1, and it looks very similar, but who knows what it really is. I’ll experiment some and let you know what I find out. thanks for trying to help with this.

As I suspected, this is not the LoRa board, it’s just an esp32, Bluetooth, OLED display, and battery management. They will actually be useful for some future projects, but not for the current efforts. I’ve ordered the right board.

Hi Bill.
I’m glad you found the issue.
There is a very similar board that just includes OLED and doesn’t include LoRa.
That’s probably the board you have.
Regards,
Sara

Yes, it is the OLED, esp32/bluetooth board.
I suspect any of your Mac users will be experiencing the same MacOS issues. I don’t generally use my Mac for Arduino work, but I’m away from home for a few months and didn’t bring my Windows laptop. I expect anyone using a Mac with a current version of the software is going to have problems if they install the ESP32 boards. As a test I did an installation without the ESP32 boards being added via Board Manager, and I could compile and upload to Arduino boards. Once I added the ESP32 boards with the stable release version I could no longer compile even just Blink. Replacing the ESP 32 JSON with the latest dev version eliminated the problem. I’m sure you guys would understand the discussion on GitHub about the issue, a bit too technical for me though I did understand the gist of the issue.
On another topic, do you plan to do any projects with the LilyGo T-beam ESP32 with loRa, wifi, GPS, etc. It’s an interesting module, though there are a bewildering number of revisions to it. I’m working on figuring it out, I plan to use it for a drone tow watercraft. I do a strange sport called Foil surfing and I’m building an unmanned craft to tow me into waves and then navigate to a beacon I’ll carry to pick me up. a silly project that the T-Beam seems ideal for. Your TTGO T-Call experiment put me onto the T-beam module. the capabilities seem like they might be of interest to your members.
 

Hi.
 
Thanks for sharing it. That issue was already addressed here on the forum: https://rntlab.com/question/macintosh-big-sur-macos-11-0-1-breaks-esp32-programming-on-arduino-ide/
I’ll wait a bit more to see if the things are resolved. Otherwise, we may need to update some of our tutorials.
 
As for the T-Beam, I think we have ordered one of them a few weeks ago. But, I’m not sure… I’ll have to check. That’s definitely a board that we want to take a look at and probably create a getting started guide. However, I don’t know when that will be. You’re not the first one asking for ttutorials with that board.
 
By the way, I searched for “foil surfing” and it seems just awesome 🙂
 
Regards,
Sara

It is indeed awesome, take a look at “wing foiling”, which is a variant I’m also doing–even more awesome.
Good to hear you’re looking at a tutorial for the T-beam. Just trying to figure out the versions is a challenge. the 2.16 version looks interesting, but they made an odd design choice and used a fuse in connecting the battery pack to the battery controller which allows the USB voltage to back feed and overcharge the LiPo, which of course can lead to thermal runaway and perhaps even a fire. their recommended “fix” is to replace the fuse with a diode, but it’s surface mount and I suspect a lot of users would be uncomfortable with soldering that. I can do surface mount soldering on a bare board, but on a highly populated one, as this is, I’d have a better than 50/50 chance of doing more harm than good.
Something you might consider for a tutorial is having two modules calculate the distance and heading to each other. Heading would come from comparing GPS location and compass readings. That’s a functionality that anyone experimenting with robots or drones might find useful. I’m working on exactly that. While I doubt my code will be anywhere close to as elegant as Rui’s I’d be glad to share it when I get everything working.

If you want to take wing foiling to the extreme take a look at the current America’s Cup AC75’s. They’re doing 40 knots in 8 knots of breeze (46mph in 9mph or 74kph in 15kph) with a top speed of over 50 knots (AC75 Wiki).

Hi again.
As I’ve told you previously, I still hadn’t the time to look at that board in detail. But that issue you’re referring is a real deal breaker. I don’t know if the other versions still have that issue??
It would be great if you were able to share your project. Others might be interested too.
Regards,
Sara

It looks like I might be wrong about the problem with the battery being overcharged. I found this on GitHub:
I had the same problem out of the box! The 3.3V pin header read 1.8V and nothing else was powered at all. The reason is that it has an AXP192 power controller to allow the ESP to switch peripherals on & off.
Have a look at the AXP202X Library by Lewis He:
https://platformio.org/lib/show/6657/AXP202X_Library
Add the following to your sketch:
#include <axp20x.h> AXP20X_Class axp;
And in Setup():
`
//Turn everything on
axp.setPowerOutPut(AXP192_LDO2, AXP202_ON);
axp.setPowerOutPut(AXP192_LDO3, AXP202_ON);
axp.setPowerOutPut(AXP192_DCDC1, AXP202_ON);
axp.setPowerOutPut(AXP192_DCDC2, AXP202_ON);
axp.setPowerOutPut(AXP192_DCDC3, AXP202_ON);
axp.setPowerOutPut(AXP192_EXTEN, AXP202_ON);
axp.setDCDC1Voltage(3300); //Set Pin header 3.3V line to 3.3V. Processor is happy down to 1.8V which saves power
//I don’t think this board has a built in LED, other than the Charge LED, controlled by this:
// AXP20X_LED_OFF,
// AXP20X_LED_BLINK_1HZ,
// AXP20X_LED_BLINK_4HZ,
// AXP20X_LED_LOW_LEVEL,
axp.setChgLEDMode(AXP20X_LED_OFF);
`
Everything will come back to life!
It turns out the ESP will operate down to about 1.8V quite happily.
It has a load of potentially useful (cool) features including setting the voltage supplied to any of the peripherals (to save power) and measuring the current supplied to them. You can detect whether the battery is being charged – and read the charge / discharge current.
People have commented that the battery doesn’t cut-off when over-discharged. I suspect this needs explicitly setting up on this chip too.
It could be that the power management just isn’t set up properly out of the box. I’ll keep digging.

In some boards, you have to activate some power management IC. I don’t know if that’s the case of that board.
Regards,
Sara

I discovered this morning that it was NOT the T-beam board that has the battery overcharging issue, but rather the TTGO LoRa board v2.1.6 (which you have previously used for a tutorial).
https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/community/berlin/post/warning-attention-users-of-ttgo21-v16-boards-labeled-t3_v16-on-pcb-battery-exploded-and-got-on-fire
Several people reported on the issue with TTGO LoRa (TTGO2.1 v1.6 (boards labeled “T3_V1.6” on pcb)–in the case reported in the link the battery caught fire and burned the board up. TTGO has subsequently mentioned the issue on BangGood but I don’t know whether or not Banggood and other vendors have emailed people who bought the module about the issue. If they did, I didn’t receive an email though I do indeed have two of the affected boards purchased from Banggood. Fortunately have not been using them with a battery. I will have to fix the issue though because I find the USB power is insufficient at times and I get glitches. I’ll have to undertake the repair–it’s a good excuse to sharpen my soldering skills. I’ve found an alternative fix for the brownout issue which involves increasing the capacitance of the USB power supply smoothing cap.

Hi Bill.
 
Thanks for warning us about that issue.
Fortunately, that is not the board that we use in our tutorials. This is the board we use:

ESP32 with Built-in SX1276 LoRa and SSD1306 OLED Display (Review)

 
They are all so similar, that sometimes it is difficult to figure out what is the board that we have. However, I haven’t tested the battery connector of that board either.
 
I’m glad you found out the solution for the brownout issue. It is usually related with insufficient power supply.
 
Regards,
Sara