ESP32-C3 matrix board boot loop

Issues
1

Hi! I got one of these little RGB matrix boards: GitHub - 01Space/ESP32-C3FH4-RGB

Couldn’t get the Arduino bootloaders that have been posted here - it would just crash endlessly on boot. So I flashed the blink sketch on it from the Arduino IDE (which worked OK.)

Once I did that, though, trying to flash WLED for ESP32-C3 on it results in a boot loop that looks like:

ESP-ROM:esp32c3-api1-20210207
Build:Feb  7 2021
rst:0x3 (RTC_SW_SYS_RST),boot:0xc (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
Saved PC:0x40048b82
SPIWP:0xee
mode:DIO, clock div:1
load:0x3fcd5820,len:0x458
load:0x403cc710,len:0x814
load:0x403ce710,len:0x2880
entry 0x403cc710

Any thoughts on how to resolve this loop?

Note: An ESP32-C3 Super Mini exhibits the same behavior. I noted the comment on the hardware page after I posted this, about some variants of the ESP32-C3 needing custom compilation. I’m happy to try that, but I’m not quite sure exactly what needs to be built. Any suggestions?

edit: Ok, this gets weirder: I was flashing these with esptool but decided I’d try flashing one with my Windows PC & Chrome/web flasher and it worked fine!

I can share exactly what I was doing with esptool, but is there any particular reason why flashing these with esptool wouldn’t work where the web flasher does?

2

esptool always works except if you screw up.
So it is your procedure that has flaws.

You need:

  • correct binaries (bootloader, partition map, app0, firmware)
  • correct offset for each of the above (see Espressif documentation)

Correct binaries depend on:

  • flash mode supported (DIO, DOUT, QIO, QOUT, etc)
  • flash size (2M, 4M, 8M, 16M)
  • PSRAM support (none, DIO, QIO, OPI, etc)