Thank you for your reply, ESP_Sprite. I realize that moderators may flag this post as slightly off-topic with regards to the question in the thread title, but I'd like to share my further findings. I decided to remove the metal shield from one of the faulty modules because I found a post on internet...

Thank you kindly for the quick reply. I was asking because I got a number of boards from a friend (I assume he got them from Aliexpress) and the programming fails on all of them right out of the antistatic bag with the infamous Configuring flash size... Warning: Could not auto-detect Flash size (Fla...

Hi all, The espefuse output contains a line: Flash voltage (VDD_SDIO) determined by GPIO12 on reset (High for 1.8V, Low/NC for 3.3V) I read somewhere that the onboard flash of WROVER modules runs on 1.8V. My question: is it possible to destroy the on-board flash by a low signal on GPIO12 during boot...