SO SO LOST! I think i broke it

Support
1

Hello all,
My name is Chris and I am very new to LoRa. I bought three devices off Amazon and some batteries. I was able to download the app on an Android device and on my iPhone. On the Android device, i connected one of the units and I get a popup that says, Firmware Update Required. So i click the UPDATE to 1.2.52 button and i get a message that says, FIRMWARE UPDATE ALREADY RUNNING.
The issue is, nothing ever changes. Its been in that state for about 3 days.
Since i was not able to update the Firmware over the air, i decided to try the Meshtastic Firmware Flash tool.
On one of the other units, I did my best to follow the steps on the Meshtasic site to Update the firmware. But I’m clearly an idiot and shouldn’t be allowed to touch anything electric. I followed the steps,

  1. i got a data cable, confirmed that i could see the device in the device manager "USB-Enhanced-Serial ch9102 (COM4)
  2. I chose to Use Meshtastic Flasher.
  3. I downloaded Python3 and run as administrator
  4. I install the meshtastic-flaser.zip, unzip and Run it
    Now, here is where i think i messed it up.
  5. after downloading the flasher, running as administrator i get this error.
    Step 1/4 esp32 full
    ESPTOOL Using command:–port COM4 erase_flash
    esptool.py v3.3
    Serial port COM4
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File “C:\Users\chris\meshtastic-flasher\venv\lib\site-packages\meshtastic_flasher\esptool_form.py”, line 70, in run
    esptool.main(command)
    File “C:\Users\chris\meshtastic-flasher\venv\lib\site-packages\esptool.py”, line 4687, in main
    esp = esp or get_default_connected_device(ser_list, port=args.port, connect_attempts=args.connect_attempts,
    File “C:\Users\chris\meshtastic-flasher\venv\lib\site-packages\esptool.py”, line 110, in get_default_connected_device
    _esp = ESPLoader.detect_chip(each_port, initial_baud, before, trace,
    File “C:\Users\chris\meshtastic-flasher\venv\lib\site-packages\esptool.py”, line 363, in detect_chip
    detect_port = ESPLoader(port, baud, trace_enabled=trace_enabled)
    File “C:\Users\chris\meshtastic-flasher\venv\lib\site-packages\esptool.py”, line 320, in _init
    self.port = serial.serial_for_url(port)
    File "C:\Users\chris\meshtastic-flasher\venv\lib\site-packages\serial_init    .py", line 90, in serial_for_url
    instance.open()
    File “C:\Users\chris\meshtastic-flasher\venv\lib\site-packages\serial\serialwin32.py”, line 64, in open
    raise SerialException(“could not open port {!r}: {!r}”.format(self.portstr, ctypes.WinError()))
    serial.serialutil
    SerialException
    could not open port ‘COM4’: PermissionError(13, ‘Access is denied.’, None, 5)

Any help would be great, on either issue, thanks everyone!!

2

I had a lot of issues when I first started. In regards to flashing the firmware, I had success using the manual update mode. You can verify each step as you go along. Just take it one step at a time and you’ll get there. Jim

3

Chris,
I used my laptop to Flash the V3. Most important is getting the USB drivers downloaded and installed. Then the drivers will need to be extracted. Once I had this I connected the USB on my computer to the USB C port on the Heltec. You so be able to flash the firmware after this - I went with the most recent beta version. I did all this yesterday so I am very green. I see you are a ham - my call is WW5M - I’m on QRZ email me - I’d love to hear from you!