TTGO LORA32 fail to upload

Q&A Forum › Category: ESP32 › TTGO LORA32 fail to upload

Jack Douglas asked 5 years ago

Any idea why it is not possible to upload a simple sketch to the TTGO LORA32 OLED board ?

The buttons show “RST” and “PRG” instead of “BOOT” and “EN”. I assume RST is same as BOOT which we depress on loading? Also, one of these boards I have has a blue LED on, whereas the other does not.

Perhaps someone out there has experience using it?

I’ve attempted uploading while holding either button, or none at all.

Regards, Jack

C:\Users\jack\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_235559/LoRa_Sender.ino.partitions.bin
esptool.py v2.6
Serial port COM3
Connecting…….._____….._____….._____….._____….._____….._____…..____An error occurred while uploading the sketch
_

A fatal error occurred: Failed to connect to ESP32: Timed out waiting for packet header

Question Tags: esp32 LoRa

7 Answers

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Sara Santos Staff answered 5 years ago

Hi.
The PRG button is the same as the BOOT button.
In some boards you don’t need to press any button to upload the code.
What board model are you selecting in the boards menu?
Regards,
Sara

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Jack Douglas answered 5 years ago

Using the “TTGO LoRa32-OLED V1” board, I was able to load one of my two boards with the Sender script without holding a button.

However, for the other board, I am still unable to load the Receiver code. I notice on this board there is an illuminated blue LED, whereas on the other this LED is not on. Do you know what this might mean? Is there a way to determine the health of a board (diagnostic)?

What is now your top choice for a LoRa IoT board to use in the field?

Many thanks

Jack

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Sara Santos Staff answered 5 years ago

Hi Jack.
That’s very weird…
Does your boards appear as a new COM port when you connect them to your computer?
You can try erase the flash of your boards and see if you can get them working after that.
You can see this discussion to learn how to erase the flash of your boards :https://rntlab.com/question/how-perform-reset-factory-esp32/
I hope this helps.
Regards.
Sara

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Jack Douglas answered 5 years ago

Yes, they show up in Device Manager ports.
I have a basic understanding of python in windows and linux platforms, and now esp32 and arduino boards using the arduino IDE. But how do I set up a python terminal to communicate with the esp32 ?

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Sara Santos Staff answered 5 years ago

Hi.
If you’ve already installed esptool, you just need to open a terminal window.
If you’re on Windows, go to the Start menu and search for “command Prompt”
Regards,
Sara

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Jack Douglas answered 5 years ago

No luck with the tool either. I can only believe the board is defective.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xJENdo3CHNDVeCbO9z6lI01vs9PeiXhY

By the way, note the different syntax used for the tool compared to the previous link. Must be an update?

Also, there is no way to insert an actual image, only the link? I tried selecting the image icon and inserting the shareable link into “source”, but no good. Seems a little complicated compared with most other forums.
Jack

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Sara Santos Staff answered 5 years ago

Hi Jack.

To erase flash you can also just use:

esptool.py erase-flash

You get the same error. Which means that the ESP32 is not “ready” to receive commands. It’s very strange that you can’t upload or communicate with your board, even if you press the PRG button.

I don’t know what else can be the issue :/

Maybe your board is defective, but it can also be something else. I’m not sure…

(I’m sorry about the images, it is not very intuitive – but I was able to see the image anyway).

Regards,
Sara