ESP flash download tool. Flashing firmware without bootloader and partition bin files.

[esp_love]

I have a custom board design that uses the ESP32-WROOM-32D with 16 MB flash. I have written my firmware in Arduino IDE. Everything works perfectly when I flash the system from Arduino IDE. But when I flash the system with ESP flash download tool from Espressif, the flash download succeeds but the system goes into an infinite reboot loop (I am using esp flash download tool version 3.9.5). The following are my settings when I flash the system with the flash tool. These are the same in Arduino IDE.

espflash.jpg (228.3 KiB) Viewed 14955 times

I get the following from esp flash download tool.

test.JPG (33.46 KiB) Viewed 14955 times

It says No XMC flash detected (Dont know what this means), but flashing succeeds.

The partition table is as follows

partition.JPG (12.46 KiB) Viewed 14955 times

Why is my system stuck in infinite reboot loop after flashing with these settings using esp flash download tool?

Further, when I flash the firmware bin file only at address 0x10000 with esp download tools then everything works fine. So why do I need to flash the bootloader bin and partition table bin everytime I update the firmware, if flashing only the firmware bin file at the correct address will do the job.

[ESP_Sprite]

You're missing the (2nd stage) bootloader. Without that, the ESP32 won't boot.

[esp_love]

The bootloader I am flashing at 0x1000 is not the second-stage bootloader?

[ESP_Sprite]

Ah, sorry, I was looking at the wrong picture.

[Blazo12]

Hello,

I am having trouble with the Flash download tool for ESP32.
I have installed the necessary drivers, and when I connect it to the computer it recognises it as COM3.
However, once I start the installation, it only shows COM FAIL, even If I lower the BAUD speed.
Any advice on this?

Thank you.