Help with ESP32 reading UART from Lora module

Hello community,

I have been struggling recently with reading the UART data with ESP32 coming from Lora module LLCC68.

My setup:
I have 2 LLCC68 - 1 connected with Arduino and the other with ESP32 running esphome.

Right now I can receive anything that is sent FROM esp32 TO Arduino.
Problem is I cannot read anything when data is sent FROM Arduino TO esp32.

I have confirmed that both LLCC68s are fine - connected to another Arduino instead of esp32 and could communicate both ways.

I have already tried to send data in different formats such as C-strings, Strings, only one char but no success while also changing the delimiters. Also I have tried different RX pins on my ESP32.

I have checked the logs of esp32 and I do not see any activity on UART bus RX while sending the messages.

Here is my esphome code.

uart:
    id: uart_bus
    tx_pin: GPIO1
    rx_pin: GPIO16
    baud_rate: 9600
    debug:
      direction: RX
      after:
        delimiter: "\r"  # Read messages separated by CR
      sequence:
        - lambda: |-
            UARTDebug::log_string(direction, bytes);  //Still log the data
          
            //Example to convert uart text to string
            std::string str(bytes.begin(), bytes.end());

            //watch for potential problems with non printable or special characters in string
            id(rawString).publish_state(str.c_str());
mqtt:
  broker: "192.168.0.10"
  id: mqtt_client
  on_message:
    - topic: loraout
      then:
        - uart.write: !lambda
            const std::vector<unsigned char> vec(x.begin(), x.end()); 
            return vec;

text_sensor:
  - platform: template
    name: "Raw String"
    id: "rawString"

i2c:
  sda: 21
  scl: 22
  scan: true
  id: bus_a

i2s_audio:
  i2s_lrclk_pin: GPIO33
  i2s_bclk_pin: GPIO25 

On Arduino side I would like to send simple String, does not matter:
Example:

char unlock[] = "unlock";
Serial1.println(unlock);

I am out of ideas right now. Could anybody help me ?

Forgot to mention: Running the almost latest v 2024.8 esphome

You could try dummy_reciever: true and also try logger levels at:

logger:
  level: VERBOSE