ESP Devices not appearing in HA Green USB list

ESPHome
1

I have been working with ESPHome for a while now, loving it :+1:

I use an HA Green box to host my Home Assistant, etc.

When I start work on a new ESP32 or ESP8266, I flash basic firmware by connecting the chip to “the computer running ESPHome Device Builder” (my HA Green), then subsequently update wirelessly.

The Green has a Sky Connect in one USB port and I keep the other free for flashing. The Sky Connect device continues to be visible.

Recently I had my first chip fail to show up in the list of USB devices. I had already flashed this chip once (so it had connected once before), however I wanted to re-flash it to start with this device again from scratch.

My assumption was that I had hosed this chip so badly, it no longer was able to act as a USB device :man_shrugging::cry:

A day or so later and I am starting a new project.

I have a mix of completely unused ESP32 and 8266’s and went to flash one. It did not appear in the list, then the next 3 chips also failed to appear.

I have tried alternative cables, rebooted the box, etc. yada yada.

I seems very unlikely that I now have 4 broken chips.

Can anyone suggest some way to debug what is going wrong with the USB bus on the HA Green?

Thanks for any suggestions.

2

Have you rebooted the HA host (not just the core).
It might be that the HAOS have not registered the removal of a previous connected device and so a new device can not be connected.

3

Thanks Wally
I picked “Advanced Options”, “Reboot System” from Settings, Hardware.
Is that what you suggested?

4

yes.
Did it help?

5

‘Fraid not, but thanks for trying.
Still trying to determine if I have a mis-behaving Green or if I have 4 dud ESPs.
Waiting for a USBC to USB Micro cable to arrive, so I can test the chips from my Mac :crossed_fingers:

6

Just an idea: could it be that the power unit is not providing enough umpf

7

Thanks for the suggestion but it’s unlikely.
I have been working like this successfully for months.

8

Technical term?

OP- Try another flashing program. I use ESPHome Flasher on all of my ESP devices. I think it will work for ESP32s. (I don’t do much in ESP32 because the Wemos D1 Mini satisfies 99% of my project requirements and I buy them by the dozen.)

ESPHome Flasher is old, depreciated and dirt simple. But it works when other flashers don’t.

9

Thanks for your suggestion.
The flasher you mention is deprecated by the look of it and unfortunately only released for MacOS as an Intel build.
I am using the esphome python scripts on a Mac successfully.

I do not think the flasher is the problem, the issue is to do with recognising (or not in my case) the ESPs in the Green’s USB port.

10

My new USB cable came, C to Micro. It allows me to plug the ESP8266 chips in question to my Mac and run ls /dev/tty.* to test if they are connecting.

3 of these ESPs that do not appear if plugged into the HA Green are fine when plugged into my Mac.

The HA Green has developed a fault with USB.

  1. Use ESPHome Builder in the HA App
  2. Choose to install a config
  3. Pick “Plug into the computer running ESPHome Device Builder” (my HA Green)
  4. In the “Pick Server Port” dialog, expect to see two ports available … ARGH!!

I see the two ports!!
The HA Green’s USB issue has magically gone away (don’t you hate it when that happens).

11

Just like that?! :confused:

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12

3 of these ESPs that do not appear if plugged into the HA Green are fine when plugged into my Mac.

Probably too little power. I run a powered hub on the Green and have all sorts of stuff connected (an RTL radio, an extra USB-Bluetooth, some M5Stamps, and the ZBT-1) and they all work fine.

The hub I’m using is the Amazon Basics 7-port 36W but it has been discontinued. There’s a pretty equivalent Anker or this ACASIS which has individual power-cut buttons for each port… the easy way to power-cycle :slight_smile:

Not sure your original problem was power, but I’ve not had any troubles this way.