LilyGO LoRa T3S3 firmware does not flash (hardware failure)

[LTVA1]

Describe the Bug
LilyGO LoRa T3S3 SX1262 868 MHz firmware does not flash (hardware failure). Flash is written, but then Serial port opened, but RNode did not respond.

To Reproduce
Try to flash LilyGO LoRa T3S3 device via USB cable.

Expected Behavior
I expected proper firmware installation.

Logs & Screenshots
fail.txt

System Information

• Win 10
• Python version 3.11.8
• RNode 2.2.0

[LTVA1]

With web flasher firmware is flashed, but eeprom provision or hash thing don't literally do anything, browser console shows no messages but serial port remains open?

[recrof]

With web flasher firmware is flashed, but eeprom provision or hash thing don't literally do anything, browser console shows no messages but serial port remains open?

did you try to use official way of flashing the firmware via cli rnodeconf --autoinstall? (note that web flasher needs to be closed when trying)

[LTVA1]

I tried both. CLI flasher doesn't see the device after flashing the main firmware, so ot can't proceed with EEPROM part

[recrof]

I tried both. CLI flasher doesn't see the device after flashing the main firmware, so ot can't proceed with EEPROM part

does meshtastic work on the device? so you can be sure it's not a hardware failure. I would also try to flash it from linux live cd, to be sure it's not related to windows.

[LTVA1]

Yes, Meshtastic works. I checked it by the magic of having two of these nodes. I also plan to install Linux virtual machine to flash from it

[markqvist]

The "Hardware failure" message most likely just means it has not yet received a configuration and saved it to EEPROM.

If this is a newly flashed device, you must provision the EEPROM configuration for it to start (otherwise the device has no idea about frequency range, TX power limits, etc.).

So to be clear: If you just compile and flash the firmware, you will get exactly that message. It won't work.

You have to provision the EEPROM first, either via the rnodeconf -a autoinstaller, or just doing it manually with rnodeconf --rom. Either way will work fine.

Some firmwares will not allow flashing directly, but requires you to put the device into DFU mode first (I have seen this behaviour if the device currently has Meshtastic firmware on it). If you put the device into DFU mode (hold BOOT, press RESET), flashing will work fine. That will cause an issue once the EEPROM needs to be written, since device will still be in DFU mode. After flashing has finished, and before EEPROM provisioning runs, you'll need to manually press the RESET button to actually start the firmware, which can then receive the EEPROM config.

All of that being said, there have been reports of COM port numbers shuffling around on Windows, when the device resets, which may complicate things further. If this is the case for you, the best options are:

• Use the latest version of @liamcottle's web flasher. It allows selecting the right port for each step.
• Use rnodeconf -a on Linux, where flashing T3S3 boards works without any issues.

I am closing this, since it is not an issue with the RNode firmware. Please open help requests in the general discussion forums instead.

[liamcottle]

@LTVA1

With web flasher firmware is flashed, but eeprom provision or hash thing don't literally do anything, browser console shows no messages but serial port remains open?

I note that your report says you're using Windows, my web flasher had several issues with serial ports when using Windows. I've rewritten parts of this, and cleaned up a few things related to dangling serial port connections preventing users from opening a new connection if something went wrong previously.

Please try flashing, provisioning and setting the firmware hash again after force reloading the web flasher.

Related issue here: liamcottle/rnode-flasher#7

[LTVA1]

Thanks, I will try soon