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I bought a 2-pack of ESP32C3 Super-mini MCUs but I am unable to flash anything onto them.

I'm just trying to flash the example "Blink Sketch" that is available in the Arduino IDE (Version 2.3.2) and I have installed the esp32 boards (Version 2.0.11) in the Arduino IDE. When I plug in the ESP32s both of them seem to "bootloop", I constantly hear the sound of a USB device disconnecting.

  • The board that is selected in the Arduino IDE is "ESP32C3 Dev Module"
  • I have lowered the Baud rate to everything the IDE has to offer
  • I tried connecting PIN9 to GND which stopped the bootlooping issue but I still couldn't flash anything
  • I have tried holding down the "BOOT" button while connecting, this also stopped the bootloops but it results in different errors
  • I tried enabling USB CDC On Boot which did nothing
  • I tried using 2 different USB-C to USB-C Cables on 2 different ports

When I connect PIN9 to GND OR when I press and hold the BOOT button, the following error occurs during flashing:

Sketch uses 216800 bytes (16%) of program storage space. Maximum is 1310720 bytes. Global variables use 13404 bytes (4%) of dynamic memory, leaving 314276 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 327680 bytes. esptool.py v4.5.1 Serial port COM5 Connecting... Chip is ESP32-C3 (revision v0.4) Features: WiFi, BLE Crystal is 40MHz MAC: dc:da:XX:XX:XX:XX Uploading stub... Running stub... Stub running... Configuring flash size... Flash will be erased from 0x00000000 to 0x00003fff... Flash will be erased from 0x00008000 to 0x00008fff... Flash will be erased from 0x0000e000 to 0x0000ffff... Flash will be erased from 0x00010000 to 0x00047fff... Compressed 13216 bytes to 9528... A fatal error occurred: Packet content transfer stopped (received 8 bytes) Failed uploading: uploading error: exit status 2

And this is what the Serial Monitor shows:

ESP-ROM:esp32c3-api1-20210207 Build:Feb 7 2021 rst:0x15 (USB_UART_CHIP_RESET),boot:0x5 (DOWNLOAD(USB/UART0/1)) Saved PC:0xxxxxxx waiting for download

Small Update

When I plug in the ESP32 normally without holding any button or pulling down any pin, the following shows up on the serial monitor:

ESP-ROM:esp32c3-api1-20210207 Build:Feb 7 2021 rst:0x15 (USB_UART_CHIP_RESET),boot:0xf (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT) Saved PC:0x4004c0d4 invalid header: 0xffffffff invalid header: 0xffffffff invalid header: 0xffffffff invalid header: 0xffffffff invalid header: 0xffffffff invalid header: 0xffffffff invalid header: 0xffffffff (this goes on endlessly)

Could they just be broken?

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  • try lower upload baud rate Commented Feb 24, 2024 at 6:36
  • I tried the following baud rates: 921600, 115200, 256000, 230400, 512000 and none of them worked Commented Feb 24, 2024 at 12:32
  • The flash memory reads out as all ff's when it's cleared, so this looks as if the flash memory is just empty. Looks like the memory is either bad so it can't be written or something with the boot loader is wrong. I don't exactly know how that works on an ESP32, though. Commented Feb 25, 2024 at 19:53

3 Answers 3

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Yup, I've just bricked one of my 4 SuperMini boards just the same! :D

Interestingly, I was able to flash ESP's blink example with Espressif IDF extension for Visual Studio Code, and that worked fine. But I can no longer flash a MicroPythton binary successfully - same result as yourself. I'm concluding that I've likely trashed some part of the bootloader or fuses. I've put the board aside for future investigation, as it's still executing C/C++ code fine.

BTW none of the MicroPython example code I've tried to establish a WiFi connection seems to work for the C3 even though it works fine on regular ESP32s. Yes, I can read all the surrounding WAPs, but I can't get an IP from any of them. I'm wondering if the C3 is flawed in this respect, if it's a hardware problem on these cheapo boards, or a problem with the current C3 MicroPython .bin. I added an external antenna for a very significant boost in signal strength, but that's made no difference. I might buy a sample of another make of C3 board to see if that's also problematic in this respect.

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Double check the product code on the chips, they must include something like «FN4» or «FH4», if not, then there's no Flash at all inside them See the datasheet.

On my supermini boards, chips say «ESP32-C3\n432023\nUE00MAK173» (the 432023 is the week code). No «F», so no Flash, thus esptool cannot get Flash size:

C:\Users\XXXXXX\.espressif\frameworks\esp-idf-v5.2.1>python -m esptool flash_id esptool.py v4.7.0 Found 1 serial ports Serial port COM4 Connecting... Detecting chip type... ESP32-C3 Chip is ESP32-C3 (QFN32) (revision v0.4) Features: WiFi, BLE Crystal is 40MHz MAC: dc:da:0c:8e:cf:38 Uploading stub... Running stub... Stub running... Manufacturer: 3f Device: ffff Detected flash size: Unknown Hard resetting via RTS pin...

and you must provide an external SPI Flash.

Bought these boards from Aliexpress, and according to some photographs sent by other buyers, some boards come with the «FH4» and mine (and others?) w/o it.

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i setup tx rx and flashed from a external programer. I then installed tasmota from there web site https://tasmota.github.io/install/ works good + cool new tools

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