[jacqueline]

Hey Gamers,

As promised, I have written some docs on how to flash new firmware manually, either with the companion CLI, or via esptool. Check it out: https://cooltech.zone/tangara/docs/flashing/

Let me know any issues, comments, additional things you'd like covered!

[henesy]

Does the esptool.js stuff only work in chrome based browsers? Doesn't seem to trigger the serial port dialogue for me in Firefox

[ayumi]

Does the esptool.js stuff only work in chrome based browsers? Doesn't seem to trigger the serial port dialogue for me in Firefox

IIRC Mozilla deliberately didn’t implement WebUSB and WebSerial, so there is no way to access an USB device from a website’s JS, unless you are using WebMIDI, which was implemented by Mozilla. The fact that they implemented WebMIDI at all may suggest that they have changed their stance and one day they will also implement WebUSB and WebSerial. For now though you will need to use a Chromium–based browser if you want esptool.js to work.

[redshift]

Hey Gamers,

As promised, I have written some docs on how to flash new firmware manually, either with the companion CLI, or via esptool. Check it out: https://cooltech.zone/tangara/docs/flashing/

Let me know any issues, comments, additional things you'd like covered!

I've been using the flash command from BUILDING.md which uses idf.py and doesn't specify regions on the command line, so it erases and flashes 7 regions.  I like that I don't have to think about memory addresses or .tra files, but is it just wasting time compared to what's in these docs?  I do wait around for firmware flashing quite a bit.

Also, do we have to worry about number of flash cycles, i.e. durability?

[jacqueline]

We mostly just use `idf.py flash` for local development as well. It's fine. If you're doing *just* C/C++ changes (no lua changes) then `idf.py app-flash` just flashes the C/C++ firmware partition. In theory there should also be a magical incantation you can pass to flash just the C/C++ and Lua partitions, but we've never been bothered enough by flashing times to look into it too hard.

The on-board flash is rated for at least 100,000 cycles so durability shouldn't be an issue. If in a few decades you start seeing flash write failures then mail us your Tangara and we'll replace the chip :p