Hi.
When you bought your camera, did it come with the programmer?
When you buy them together, they are usually 100% compatible and you don’t need to hold any buttons to upload the code.
 
If you buy them separately, sometimes you need to press the RST and IO0 buttons to upload code successfully to your board. If your programmer doesn’t have the IO0 button, well… I’m not sure what needs to be done.
 
Can you show me a picture of your programmer?
To share a picture, save it on google drive, dropbox, Imgur or other, and then share a link to the file.
 
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Sara
 
 

Hi Sara
The ESP32-CAM-MB programmer came with an ESP32-CAM that was not the AIThinker, so I plugged in a separate AI Thinker. The original ESP32-CAM came with the programmer itself, I got the item from Amazon UK (DORHEA ESP32 Cam WiFi Bluetooth Development Board with OV2640 Camera Module + Micro USB to Serial Port CH340C 4.75V-5.25V Nodemcu for Raspberry Pi). Even though it said “Raspberry Pi” I assmed that it would still work with the Arduino IDE. Is this a problem?

Hi Bob.
 
If the ESP32-CAM is similar to the AI-Thinker, you can use the programmer, even though it doesn’t specify AI-Thinker.
I searched that product on Amazon and see that it indeed doesn’t have the IO0 on the board. That’s probably because it’s not needed and it can only be used with the board that comes with it.
You should be able to use that board with our projects.
 
But, I don’t think the programmer will be compatible with other boards…
 
As for the Raspberry Pi, I think you can ignore that. Vendors usually put all sorts of keywords to try to rank a product.
 
Regards,
Sara

Hi Sara
Thank you for your advice. I tried to upload yet again (about the tenth time!), but failed. I then decided to try the FTDI unit (which I had bought at the same time, following the advice in the e-book) and this time the sketch uploaded satisfactorily.  So I’ll now try to get on with the rest of the instructions and I’ll return the programmer and its associated ESP32-CAM to DORHEA with the complaint that it didn’t work (and yes I was using a proper data cable!).
Regards
Bob
 

Hi Sara yet again
I won’t be returning the programmer and its associated ESP32-CAM to DORHEA after all. I plugged in the original ESP32-CAM instead of the AI Thinker into the programmer and the sketch uploaded with no problem (nor any need to press any BOOT or RST buttons). I have met this problem once before, some ESP32s are different from others!.
Regards
Bob

Great!
I’ll mark this issue as resolved. If you need further help, you just need to open a new question in our forum.
Regards,
Sara