NVS - what am I missing?

[ndjurov]

Thanks again boarchuz,

You were right about the quick reboot.
I just changed the test program to get/set an integer value, rather than a string and I used the value as a restart counter that starts from 1. Just like you suggested, the first log displayed in the VS Code showed the counter value of 2, which indicates that this was the second run, not the first one.
Thanks a lot for your help. I will not check the "Reset after flashing" flag that you mentioned.
I think this is very interesting and important issue which can easily bring some confusion and unexpected results.

Cheers.

[ndjurov]

For those interested, here is a short discussion about the flash/reset scenario:
https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/issues/4917