Help with failing ESP32-S3-Box-3 after ESPHome upgrade to 2025.3.0

ESPHome
1

I just upgraded to ESPHome 2025.3.0 and rebuilt my configuration for an ESP32-S3-Box-3. The compile and OTA upload work as expected, however the device does not fully come back up. The screen never turns on, ESPHome Device Builder can’t connect to the API for logging, and it doesn’t reconnect to Home Assistant. Without logging, I have no way of seeing what might be the actual error. The device does manage to reconnect to wifi, and I can repeatedly send firmware OTA to it, but that’s all. I did not see any relevant breaking changes in the release notes that implied something needing to be updated, and no validation failures occurred with the YAML.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. This worked perfectly on the prior version.

Configuration can be found at: config.yaml

End of build logs:

Linking .pioenvs/game-room-satellite/firmware.elf
RAM:   [=         ]  12.9% (used 42232 bytes from 327680 bytes)
Flash: [====      ]  43.7% (used 3553497 bytes from 8126464 bytes)
Building .pioenvs/game-room-satellite/firmware.bin
Creating esp32s3 image...
Successfully created esp32s3 image.
esp32_create_combined_bin([".pioenvs/game-room-satellite/firmware.bin"], [".pioenvs/game-room-satellite/firmware.elf"])
SHA digest in image updated
Wrote 0x373a40 bytes to file /data/build/game-room-satellite/.pioenvs/game-room-satellite/firmware.factory.bin, ready to flash to offset 0x0
esp32_copy_ota_bin([".pioenvs/game-room-satellite/firmware.bin"], [".pioenvs/game-room-satellite/firmware.elf"])
======================== [SUCCESS] Took 288.23 seconds ========================
INFO Successfully compiled program.
INFO Connecting to 192.168.221.57 port 3232...
INFO Connected to 192.168.221.57
INFO Uploading /data/build/game-room-satellite/.pioenvs/game-room-satellite/firmware.bin (3553856 bytes)
Uploading: [============================================================] 100% Done...

INFO Upload took 9.96 seconds, waiting for result...
INFO OTA successful
INFO Successfully uploaded program.
INFO Starting log output from 192.168.221.57 using esphome API
WARNING Can't connect to ESPHome API for game-room-satellite @ 192.168.221.57: Error connecting to [AddrInfo(family=<AddressFamily.AF_INET: 2>, type=<SocketKind.SOCK_STREAM: 1>, proto=6, sockaddr=IPv4Sockaddr(address='192.168.221.57', port=6053))]: [Errno 111] Connect call failed ('192.168.221.57', 6053) (SocketAPIError)
INFO Trying to connect to game-room-satellite @ 192.168.221.57 in the background
2

Any luck if you flash a minimal config? Then add back chunks.

Also might be worth trying a hard reboot after flash if you haven’t already.

Also try cleaning build files.

3

I was writing the same. Spartan “hello world” to start debugging…

1 Like
4

I did try cleaning the build files, that was my first thought, just forgot to mention it. I’ll spend some time tonight trying a simplified version to make sure anything works. Just difficult to know what is happening since I get no logging through esphome, and this has mostly been something I’ve tinkered with, rather than being something I totally understand. :slight_smile:

5

Same issue with a Waveshare 4.3 S3 display, ended up rolling back ESPHome. Only logs I could get out were via serial port, unfortunately didn’t save before rolling back to 2025.2.2. This was after spending hours debugging!

6

I rolled back as well. However it looks like there may be a fix: 2025.3.0 Breaks ILI9341 and CST816 LCD running LVGL causes a bootloop. · Issue #6878 · esphome/issues · GitHub

There is a work around listed though I haven’t had a chance to try it. Expect it will be in the next patch.

7

That change should not have affected the S3 Box which has PSRAM and so should not be using a small buffer_size. I’ll try to reproduce.

8

So it was caused by the same PR, but the cause was different, so the earlier fix did not help. Add this to your yaml to fix:

external_components:
  - source: github://pr#8444
    components: [lvgl]
1 Like
9

Confirmed this worked for my configuration. Thanks so much @clydebarrow!