Unable to flash esphome on nspanel

i have connected everything according to the manual, 3.3V, GND, RX and RX to 3.3V, GND RX and TX.
GPIO0 to GND.
But it is not entering bootloader. No connection in ESP home flasher. When i disconnect GPIO0 from GND, it starts correctly, as i can ping the ip adres of the device.
I completely removed the oard from the nspanel, so the serial connection is not touching the metal

i have flashed more devices with serial connections

Not sure if I can add a thing but … NSPANEL was my very first ESP thing to flash … I used this video which worked out fine. I did also (!) remove it from the case just to be sure.

i use that exactly like that:
Using ‘COM7’ as serial port.
Connecting……_____
Unexpected error: ESP Chip Auto-Detection failed: Failed to connect to Espressif device: Timed out waiting for packet header

it seems its not going into bootloader mode

You agree that on this distance it is quite a challenge to find out what is happening.
Guesswork:

  • cabling not good … even though you say you did it to the letter… maybe fracture, wrong pin labelling (not at all uncommon), oid
  • your pc/laptop has issues with COM port, e.g. my ‘office’ laptop is configured so that it rejects writing through any of the usb (security regulations)
  • device partially broken
    So my first thought would be: can you flash anything else with the same cables/ports/etc.?

I had something similar happen to me the other day, I was batch programming a dozen esp’s and after 5 or 6 it just stopped working with exactly the same error. unplugging the serial adaptor and plugging it into the same port didn’t fix it, but after loads of messing around I got it working by plugging it into a different USB port, it got a new com port and I updated the command to the new com port number and away it went again.

It was almost like the com port got locked up and wouldn’t release and plugging it into a different USB port fixed it.

Another option… maybe use another (older or newer) flash tool… recently I had to back down ESPHome for tuya-convert

i tried several other serial adapters, with different chipsets.
CP2102 worked ok. Flashed it correctly

Then…obviously I cannot be 100% sure … but it very much seems to point to a device related issue…or?

I had the same problem and I am at the end with my debugging skills.

I try ubuntu on 2 different systems and I try windows.

cheked my connections 1000 times with a multimeter, checked the voltage.

EDIT:
okay, I got it. My CP2102 flasher was not able to flash my nspanel. I ordered a FT232RL and it worked without any issues.

Same here, I can’t get mine to flash. The first time I tried to flash it it was with a janky setup of wires and usb adapter, but after many attempts I finally got it to connect and it said it flashed successfully. I went ahead and installed it but it wouldn’t connect to my 2.4 wifi network. Thinking that that’s strange I tried to flash it again with the same serial adapter and it would not flash. I ordered another adapter off amazon (FT232) and it is not working still. Won’t flash off of HA or ESP Flasher, it simply wont connect. The relays still work though and I can control my attached light, but nothing else works. The screen just shows the factory UI, it doesn’t keep time, show temp, or anything. It reboots every 30 minutes and beeps when it does, its getting pretty annoying. I guess there is a chance I shorted the wires against the display but I put a couple layers of electrical tape over the metal before I tried anything. Do we think shes dead? I have another one on the way but im not trying to just throw this in the garbage…

Replying to my own comment here so hopefully anyone that sees this sees my stupid mistake. You need to TX and RX get flipped between the adapter and the Panel. So TX on the USB goes to RX on the panel and vice versa. It makes perfect sense now, Transmit to Receive, right, but I was too caught up in just matching the pins that I couldn’t figure it out. This is such a rookie move but I’m just glad I figured it out.

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