Error flashing EspHome after migration from Tasmota on ESP32 (Sonoff DUALR3)

Jethro97 · January 9, 2023, 4:57pm

Hello guys,

I’m experiencing a problem trying to flash images on DUALR3 Sonoff Smart Relays, based on ESP32 chip.

While flashing directly there’s no issues, but when trying to migrate:

If I select “Modern Format” Tasmota fail saying “Invalid file signature”
If I select “Legacy Format” Tasmota flash succed and ESPhome device works as expected, until I try to do an OTA upgrade.

The file is simple and works on other DUALR3

This is the error I got when trying to OTA upgrade:

Processing rele-scrivania (board: esp32dev; framework: arduino; platform: platformio/espressif32 @ 5.2.0)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HARDWARE: ESP32 240MHz, 320KB RAM, 4MB Flash
 - toolchain-xtensa-esp32 @ 8.4.0+2021r2-patch3
LDF: Library Dependency Finder -> https://bit.ly/configure-pio-ldf
Dependency Graph
|-- WiFi @ 2.0.0
|-- ESPmDNS @ 2.0.0
|-- Update @ 2.0.0
|-- noise-c @ 0.1.4
|   |-- libsodium @ 1.10018.1
Compiling /data/rele-scrivania/.pioenvs/rele-scrivania/src/main.cpp.o
Linking /data/rele-scrivania/.pioenvs/rele-scrivania/firmware.elf
RAM:   [=         ]  12.2% (used 40120 bytes from 327680 bytes)
Flash: [=====     ]  47.9% (used 879205 bytes from 1835008 bytes)
Building /data/rele-scrivania/.pioenvs/rele-scrivania/firmware.bin
Creating esp32 image...
Successfully created esp32 image.
esp32_create_combined_bin(["/data/rele-scrivania/.pioenvs/rele-scrivania/firmware.bin"], ["/data/rele-scrivania/.pioenvs/rele-scrivania/firmware.elf"])
Wrote 0xe80f0 bytes to file /data/rele-scrivania/.pioenvs/rele-scrivania/firmware-factory.bin, ready to flash to offset 0x0
========================= [SUCCESS] Took 8.80 seconds =========================
INFO Successfully compiled program.
INFO Connecting to 10.10.12.82
INFO Uploading /data/rele-scrivania/.pioenvs/rele-scrivania/firmware.bin (884976 bytes)
Uploading: [=                                                           ] 1% 
ERROR Error sending data: [Errno 104] Connection reset by peer

I searched on www but found nothing

nickrout · January 9, 2023, 9:15pm

Keep trying, and possibly bring the device closer to your ap so the wifi strength is bettet.

Jethro97 · January 10, 2023, 7:38am

Thank you, already tried several times, device are under the AP, both with 50 dB or less, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Also tried power cycling some times with no results

EDIT: Tried with minimal firmware (only wifi, api, ota): same problem.

Jethro97 · January 12, 2023, 10:48pm

This is definitely a problem.

Flashed the same image via USB TTL adapter and is now working flawlessly.

Tried to upgrade a MINIR2 (ESP8266 based) and got Tasmota saying “Not enough space” even if program and flash size are correct. I think there is something with the latest version of Tasmota (12.3.1) as I had no problems migrating from the previous ones

Edit: *solved on the ESP8266 uploading a compressed .bin.gz source

Jethro97 · January 17, 2023, 6:17pm

I had to solder and flash with usb adapter ALL the Tasmota ESP32 devices I had, to migrate to ESPhome.

In the other hand, I only need to flash tasmota minimal and then ESPhome on ESP8266 devices.

daywalker03 · January 17, 2023, 7:48pm

This might sound strange, but if you can load the latest minimal tasmota image, you should be able to flash it over the air. That’s what I had to do with my Sonoff Basic R2 that already had tasmota on it.

Jethro97 · February 10, 2023, 12:18pm

That’s also what i did on MINIR2 and all other ESP8266 based devices, on ESP32 boards, but on DUALR3 it didn’t work.

MsG · April 16, 2023, 12:20pm

Same problem, pretty annoying with these boards. There seems to be no minimal for my board (ESP32-S2)

AndreKR · September 11, 2023, 11:56am

I have the exact same issue on two devices, a Shelly Plus i4 and a Sonoff TX Ultimate.

And if I retry the flash process, the second time it will look like the OTA update completed successfully, with upload progress bar and all, but the firmware will not change.

The way I put ESPHome on the devices is: I installed Tasmota on them via Shelly OTA update or Tasmota Web Flasher respectively, then I downloaded the ESPHome binary in “legacy” format and flashed it using Tasmota’s update form. Was that the correct procedure?

ferbulous · September 11, 2023, 6:25pm

There’s a different storage partition starting with tasmota v12 not compatible with esphome
If you have safe boot partition, then you need to serial flash it

AndreKR · September 11, 2023, 7:00pm

There was a message during the update “Switching to Safeboot” and after the update before the reboot there was a red text “SAFEBOOT” above the menu. So I think I have it, whatever it is.

Does that mean there is no way to go from Tasmota to ESPHome using OTA? Or do I simply need to do something different?

Does that explain why my OTA updates have no effect?

ferbulous · September 12, 2023, 1:04am

Yes, unfortunately
If you still need to use tasmota, you’ll need to flash tasmota v11, and you can still ota to v12 and back to esphome.

pbix · November 6, 2023, 2:39am

Same problem here.
“Modern format” produces the “Invalid file signature” error.
“Legacy format” works after a couple of tries but later updates via ESPHome produce the following:

INFO Successfully compiled program.
INFO Resolving IP address of esp-j1.local
INFO  -> 192.168.2.184
INFO Uploading /data/build/esp-j1/.pioenvs/esp-j1/firmware.bin (860976 bytes)
Uploading: [                                                            ] 0% 
ERROR Error sending data: [Errno 104] Connection reset by peer

Monitoring log output in a separate web page I can observe the following:

INFO Reading configuration /config/esphome/esp-j1.yaml...
INFO Starting log output from esp-j1.local using esphome API
INFO Successfully connected to esp-j1.local
[21:25:22][I][app:102]: ESPHome version 2023.10.6 compiled on Nov  5 2023, 21:04:36
[21:25:22][C][wifi:546]: WiFi:
[21:25:22][C][wifi:382]:   Local MAC: 84:F7:03:EC:B7:68
[21:25:22][C][wifi:383]:   SSID: [redacted]
[21:25:22][C][wifi:384]:   IP Address: 192.168.2.184
[21:25:22][C][wifi:386]:   BSSID: [redacted]
[21:25:22][C][wifi:387]:   Hostname: 'esp-j1'
[21:25:22][C][wifi:389]:   Signal strength: -7 dB ▂▄▆█
[21:25:22][C][wifi:393]:   Channel: 1
[21:25:22][C][wifi:394]:   Subnet: 255.255.255.0
[21:25:22][C][wifi:395]:   Gateway: 192.168.2.3
[21:25:22][C][wifi:396]:   DNS1: 192.168.2.3
[21:25:22][C][wifi:397]:   DNS2: 192.168.2.2
[21:25:22][C][logger:416]: Logger:
[21:25:22][C][logger:417]:   Level: DEBUG
[21:25:22][C][logger:418]:   Log Baud Rate: 115200
[21:25:22][C][logger:420]:   Hardware UART: UART0
[21:25:22][C][captive_portal:088]: Captive Portal:
[21:25:22][C][mdns:115]: mDNS:
[21:25:22][C][mdns:116]:   Hostname: esp-j1
[21:25:22][C][ota:097]: Over-The-Air Updates:
[21:25:31][I][ota:117]: Boot seems successful, resetting boot loop counter.
[21:25:32][D][esp32.preferences:114]: Saving 1 preferences to flash...
[21:25:32][D][esp32.preferences:143]: Saving 1 preferences to flash: 0 cached, 1 written, 0 failed
[21:27:09][D][ota:151]: Starting OTA Update from 192.168.2.217...
[21:27:17][D][ota:320]: OTA in progress: 0.1%
WARNING esp-j1.local: Connection error occurred: [Errno 104] Connection reset by peer
INFO Processing unexpected disconnect from ESPHome API for esp-j1.local
WARNING Disconnected from API
INFO Successfully connected to esp-j1.local
[21:32:27][I][ota:117]: Boot seems successful, resetting boot loop counter.
[21:32:27][D][esp32.preferences:114]: Saving 1 preferences to flash...
[21:32:27][D][esp32.preferences:143]: Saving 1 preferences to flash: 0 cached, 1 written, 0 failed

The following link indicates this should work and to use the “Modern format” but it does not work.
https://next.esphome.io/guides/migrate_sonoff_tasmota

I am unable to initialize the WEMO-S2 using web.esphome.io as well.

Seems “board: lolin_s2_mini” is broken in several places.

If someone knows what to try I can give it a go.