Using USB-JTAG with esp32-camera

[jamie_m]

Hello,

I am trying to debug an application with an OV2640 camera attached to a ESP32-S3 dev kit. I have confirmed that:
1) I can attach and debug a basic "Hello world" program.
2) I can configure and start the camera, grab frames, and mirror them to a TFT screen.

So nominally, hardware is working. The problem arises when I try to attach the debugger after starting the camera. As soon as I call the esp_camera_init() function, the USB-JTAG COM port drops out. I cannot get it back unless I hold down the BOOT0 button and cycle power (by unplugging/plugging the USB cable). In fact, it doesn't even come back if I do the sequence of "hold BOOT0 -> press and release RESET -> release BOOT0" though I can see that code is no longer executing, so it is in boot mode.

Before calling camera init, I see this in Device Tree:
USB JTAG/serial debug unit (Interface 0) (COM13)

As soon as I call the init, this disappears, and I can no longer attach debugger or even erase FLASH. So the esp32-camera driver is interfering with USB-JTAG bridge somehow. Can anyone help me overcome this? It is critical that I am able to breakpoint debug in this application.

Thanks,
Jamie

[ESP_Sprite]

The USB-serial-JTAG occupies GPIO19 and 20. If you reconfigure any of those, you'll lose your connection. Perhaps that's what's happening?