Un-bricking ESP8266

[Chris]

I have has some success un-bricking the HUZZAH ESP8266. I can get it to boot with AT firmware, however loading from the Arduino IDE does not work, it causes the brick to return. Here is the process I used which worked on 4 of 4 bricks I have...

NodeMCU and bin files

Please download these bins to the specified address.

Step 1

INTERNAL://Blank------------->0x00000 

INTERNAL://Blank------------->0x01000

INTERNAL://Blank------------->0x40000

INTERNAL://Blank------------->0x7c000

INTERNAL://Blank------------->0x7e000

Step 2

boot_v1.1.bin---------------->0x00000

user1.bin-------------------->0x01000

esp_init_data_default.bin---->0x7C000

blank.bin-------------------->0x7E000

Step 3 

Connect with Terminal Applicattion

115200

reset console should display

ready

send AT 

OK

[lincomatic]

My problem hasn’t been only been whether or not they could boot up… the WiFi commands often don’t work. For instance, sometimes, the AT firmware looks like it’s working, but once you try to scan for APs and connect to one, it just does the wdt reset. Even setting the CWMODE sometimes causes the wdt resets.

 

When you say the Arduino IDE causes the brick to return, are you saying that it goes into the wdt reset loop?

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[chris1howell .]

Yes, WDT resets or MEM Check Failed.

[lincomatic]

I currently don’t have any more zombie boards to play with, but I cooked up a couple of blank images that I wanted to try out on a zombie. I’ve attached a couple of blank images to this message.

 

blank512K.bin just wipes out the first 512K of flash

blank4mb.bin wipes out the entire 4MB of flash

 

Both should be written to the boards at address 0x00000

 

After successful writing of the blank data, try loading in your firmware of choice, and see if it can connect to an AP without any wdt resets.

 

My offer still stands, if anyone wants me to figure out a more consistent unzombification process, feel free to send me your zombies.

 

 

 

[lincomatic]

Interesting, I’ve never had MEM check fail

[chris1howell .]

Okay, I have 3 of 4 back from the dead. The latest Arduino ESP code on my github is not working right. Older code works okay.

I updated to latest Arduino ESP8266 Board manager released a few days ago. The Web Server is no longer starting.

the new board manager has a selection for Huzzah and a lot of examples. I will try reverting to older code and adapt to use the new examples...

The 4th is showing a new error...

Soft WDT reset

ctx: cont 

sp: 3ffec2c0 end: 3ffec570 offset: 01b0

>>>stack>>>

3ffec470:  00000002 4000410f 3fff3250 4020b32a  

3ffec480:  3fffc718 40004a3c 000003fd 3fff3328  

3ffec490:  3fffc718 401017b4 00000378 40212cc5  

3ffec4a0:  000003fd 40214093 00000378 000003ff  

3ffec4b0:  00001000 40214129 3fff1e74 000003ff  

3ffec4c0:  000003fd 3ffec59c 003fd000 3fff1e74  

3ffec4d0:  ffffff00 ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff  

3ffec4e0:  ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff 000003ff  

3ffec4f0:  40213fd0 3ffeb13c 00000001 3ffeb11c  

3ffec500:  00000001 40213ffe 00000001 3ffeb11c  

3ffec510:  402033f1 40203bf0 00000200 3fffdc20  

3ffec520:  3fffdc20 3ffeb474 3ffeb13c 40202c1c  

3ffec530:  3fff3cd8 0000004f 00000040 3fff3c98  

3ffec540:  0000002f 00000020 00000000 00000000  

3ffec550:  3fffdc20 00000000 3ffec594 4020185f  

3ffec560:  00000000 00000000 3ffeb550 40100398  

<<<stack<<<

 ets Jan  8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(1,7)

 ets Jan  8 2013,rst cause:4, boot mode:(1,7)

wdt reset

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[Craig Kirkpatrick]

I had a favorite version of Chris' code from the first few days of June that was my trusted code with early Arduino board manager that worked reliably in modules all summer long.  A few weeks ago I took the code on Chris' github and using the earliest board manager from late May I thought I had things working reliably until a couple of days ago I had a module die on me.

I may still be able to recover the backup from my old employer's laptop where I lost my trusted version of Chris's code.  Still I'm not sure of the Arduino board manager that is available today.

The ESP8266 Arduino team seems close to releasing a new version.  Honestly I think that the Arduino IDE 1.6.6 release on Tuesday set them back a bit, making no sense to release what they are doing without compatibility to the latest 1.6.6 IDE

I haven't yet tried to resuscitate my bad Huzzah module.  I'll do it today.  If I waste too much time with it I'll email Sam for his mailing address and donate it to the cause.

[lincomatic]

Received 2 zombies from Joel Newcomb today.

 

I wasn’t able to unzombify either of them yet, using the techniques that worked on Danny’s.

Also tried Chris’ method … no go.

 

One thing that I’ve learned from today’s experiment, though, is that the flash really does go bad sometimes.

One of the boards always fails when I try to write to address 0x7d000. Danny’s now defunct board always has a write failure at 0x2000.

 

Joel’s 2^nd board has no write failures. I read back the data out of the flash and compared it to what I wrote, and it matches, so there are also no write errors. Yet, the board still can’t run WiFi functions w/o going into the wdt reset loop.

[Craig Kirkpatrick]

Sam, I've been casually monitoring the Arduino ESP8266 Github discussions since beginning of August.  And I can say that I've read of folks replacing the SPI Flash chip with good success on what I guess is the generic modules or maybe on SparkFun Thing.  Huzzah being a nice FCC certified module has the lid covering all of the goodies.  Probably not worth prying off the lid and replacing the flash since time is money and the Huzzah only costs $9.95.  Still it is a mystery what turns the flash to pudding.  Who knows.  I've read nothing that tells what screws the flash.