LilyGo T-Deck bricked while flashing?

Hi folks,

Just got a T-Deck and trying to flash it. First time I plugged it in I got green and blue lights, but when I went to flash with the latest stable release, something must have gone wrong. I think this is where I got stuck in the “connecting…___…” phase. I think it’s because it had booted up normally rather than in a mode where it could take a flash.

Afterwards (if I’m remembering this right), turning on the T-Deck won’t do anything. Blank screen, no green light, but a blue one anytime it’s plugged in.

I tried again, holding down the Boot button for 3-5 seconds as I turned it on per this guide’s instructions. That got me past connecting, at least.

But now there are two places it’s hanging up. In one, I get stuck with a 100% flashed at the top but “waiting for download” in the log. In another (pictured below), it gets stuck in a different spot. In both cases, it’s still not booting or showing a green light.

Can anyone help me troubleshoot? I don’t know enough about how this is set up to be able to make sense of it with the limited tools I have.

I’m partially confused because there are two buttons to hold down: the Boot button, and an unlabeled one next to the on/off switch.

Idk, appreciate anything you can do for me :slight_smile:

Hello,

I’m absolutely not an expert, but have you :

  • verified your device is correctly recognized by your computer in device manager when connecting it with the USB cable ? If not, try to re-install ESP32 drivers.

  • tried to flash it with command line this way : Flashing with the CLI | Meshtastic ? I’m using only CLI actually.

  • I’m not sure you have to press any button when flashing, i’m flashing my device (Lora32 V2.1) directly, just by launching command, touching nothing.

  • I already had bricked device, when choosing wrong firmware. Are you sure the firmware you choosed is the correct one ? Have you tried different versions of it (2.2.23, 2.2.24, alpha versions ?). When flashing with the correct one, my bricked device acted normally again.

If it can help you ?

Thanks for your reply!

  • I tried another version of stable with the same results. Didn’t try others and can come back to this if needed, but:

  • Using the CLI I was able to get more information:

esptool.py v2.8
Found 1 serial ports
Serial port /dev/ttyACM0
Connecting…
/dev/ttyACM0 failed to connect: Could not configure port: (5, ‘Input/output error’)

A fatal error occurred: Could not connect to an Espressif device on any of the 1 available serial ports.

This was on my Linux partition. Something I noticed with Windows was that it would recognize and then lose the device (device connected sound followed by device disconnected sound a little bit later, cycling like this for a while).

I’ve tried multiple cables and USB ports, just in case.

Should also note that this is the device that shows when I try to flash using the GUI:

USB jtag/serial debug unit (com5) - paired

Hello,

The interesting thing is the fact that, in Windows, your device seems to connect/disconnect.

You were right to test multiple cables/USB ports.

Is your mainboard recent ? It is said here : ESP32 Serial Drivers | Meshtastic that some new boards may require some additionnal drivers. Have you already tried it ?

And then verify the serial driver : Test Serial Driver Installation | Meshtastic

Some people had lowered the baud rate of the COM port (properties of the port > parameters). Failed to connect to Espressif device: No serial data received (ESPTOOL-401) · Issue #719 · espressif/esptool · GitHub

Maybe more ideas here : Windows 11 problem with connecting to ESP32 (ESPTOOL-374) · Issue #706 · espressif/esptool · GitHub

Unfortunately, i don’t have the same node. Maybe if a reader has the same ?

Hope you will succeed. Have a nice sunday.

Thanks for following up.

So for starters, I gotta mention that I am a doofus and actually have a LilyGo LoRa32 V2.1_1.6 --looks like I probably flashed it with the wrong firmware. So that’s probably seriously not helping, but I don’t know to what extent it is causing these specific issues and whether I need to do something to fix it before moving forward.

  • I do see USB Serial Device (COM5) in Windows and Bus 001 Device 011: ID 303a:1001 Espressif USB JTAG/serial debug unit in Linux, both of which appear and disappear randomly.

  • I tried installing those drivers in Windows, and believe there was no change in behavior.

  • I tried another flash on Windows with the actual CORRECT device selected and got a new fun error, a repeating invalid header: 0xffffffff

  • esptool.py chip_id on Linux is successful when it’s properly connected. I think if I catch it while it’s connected, it maintains the connection however long it’s being communicated with, but can’t be certain.

  • I was able to try flashing by command line on Linux, but really struggled to tell which firmware version was mine. Went with firmware-tlora-v2-1-1_6-2.2.24.e6a2c06.bin, got this message:

Unexpected chip id in image. Expected 9 but value was 0. Is this image for a different chip model?

A fatal error occurred: bleota.bin is not an ESP32-S3 image. Use --force to flash anyway.

If you see anything in here that might help track down where the problem is, let me know… appreciate any help you can provide. I’m very new to this stuff, so I can’t make sense of the output.

The official manual for flashing the TDeck is here:

Hello,

The first thing to treat is the appearing/disappearing of COM port. I didn’t understood if you tried additionnal drivers CH9102/CH340/CH341, it’s different from the ESP32 drivers : see the beginning of ESP32 Serial Drivers | Meshtastic

It’s totally important to use the correct firmware. When you bought your device, what was exactly the reference ? Is there a reference writed on the small board ? If it was LilyGo LoRa32 V2.1_1.6 (not TCXO), the correct firmware is the one you mentionned (if it’s the TCXO version of Lora32 V2.1_1.6, there’s a specific firmware AND for this last, the 2.2.24 firmware don’t work, it needs 2.2.23). The message “unexpected chip” seems to indicate it’s not the adequate one.

Maybe your device is a Lilygo T3S3 ? It’s very similar in aspect, and the error message mentions “ESP32-S3”, and in this case, there’s a lora32-t3s3 firmware.

When flashing, be sure to do a complete flash, not an update (./device-install.bat -f firmware-BOARD-VERSION.bin when in CLI), not device-update.

And maybe, if you have access to another computer, try with it, to eleminate the eventual problem of USB port/mainboard.

You’ll probably need to change the title of your post, by replacing the name of the device, not a T-Deck, if i correctly understood.

Good luck, stay persistent.

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Continuing in a new thread here!