ESP32 installation & Replacement of PCF8574

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Oetsch
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ESP32 installation & Replacement of PCF8574

#1 Post by Oetsch » 19 May 2022, 20:16

Hi

I´m using ESPEasy on several ESP8266 and was not amused as I lookup up current release on github and if I´m right then currently for just a normal esp8266 or esp32 installation I have to download a ~650MB package. Crazy and very uneconomic out of my view in comparison to my known last releases (Mid 2021) where I assume sth. about 65MB.

Nevertheless I was not able to find any documentation or instruction about this 2step firmware file in the dist releae forlder and it´s intention to use. Kindly ask for a hint how standard installation has changed in between and how to handle. Thx!

Because of some instability issues by using ESP8266 + PCF8574 i want to try a replacement by a single ESP32 and my first ESP32 with ESPEasy. So guess the current sink connection seems to be no problem to replicate the installtion. ESP32 is specified for 28mA in current sink where PCF8574 could only handle 20mA.

But after flashing the ESP32 Mini with ESP32 4M normal version with the official esspressif tool (0x00000) I cannot recoginze any operation or access point. I´m asking if the 312k description of the flash file might be the problem for a 512k ESP32 chip?

So struggeling with this simple test setup of espeasy for an migration to an esp32 (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1509/ ... 1604068666).

Maybe you can give a hint how to solve or how to handle major points for success.

Thx!

P.S.: The ESP32 is working 100% because it was used with other firmware in another test setup before. So faulty HW should not be the case.

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Ath
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Re: ESP32 installation & Replacement of PCF8574

#2 Post by Ath » 19 May 2022, 20:49

The initial ESp32 installation of the ESPEasy firmware should be done using the .factory.bin file, at address 0x0000, and once that is all running and configured, you can do OTA (Over The Air) updates with the 'regular' .bin file (without .factory in the name).

About 2step OTA:
TL;DR:
Current bin size, even for minimal builds, prohibits the use of 2step OTA.

Longer explanation:
The 2step bin file is intended for the 1MB flash ESP8266 units, to be flashed on such unit to then have enough free space on flash to upload a minimal ESP8266 build. But the increase of code in both the Android base libraries, and ESPEasy core are blocking this 2step OTA feature, though it has gotten quite some attention about a year ago (much effort has been put into reducing the bin size, mostly by TD-er).
/Ton (PayPal.me)

Oetsch
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Re: ESP32 installation & Replacement of PCF8574

#3 Post by Oetsch » 19 May 2022, 22:12

Big Thx Ton.

First try with the factory.bin and it is working fine and I can start transfering my individual setup from the ESP8266 to ESP32 for testing the replacement.

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Re: ESP32 installation & Replacement of PCF8574

#4 Post by TD-er » 20 May 2022, 08:47

About "transferring" the setup.
You cannot copy the config.dat file from ESP8266 to ESP32.
The file structure differs, mainly due to the difference in nr of tasks.

The current build script running on GitHub actions does generate those large files.
I usually build ESPEasy on my PC too to generate the old format ZIP files, but for the last tagged build I had build issues on my own PC, so I left it for now.
Those issues were related to something changed in PIO or some library being offline and not available in my cache or something like that. (don't remember anymore)
So all bin files did not compile.

For a next build, I will make sure to build it on my PC too to get smaller ZIP files.

Oetsch
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Re: ESP32 installation & Replacement of PCF8574

#5 Post by Oetsch » 25 May 2022, 16:51

@TD-er

Thanks really appreciate this. Hope you can understand that for me as simple user it is hard to understand why it´s necessary to download ~650MB when only a 1MB file out of it is needed. I can fully understand that you are the person doing the work and keep it easy for you, that´s right.

It might be my personal opinion but I do not like this strange understanding of "big data" in our days and mostly people without any technical knowledge complain about technical issues and are shouting for bigger and bigger internet connection speed to do very very simple things in a bad way. That is not my understanding of smart behavouir or sustainable way of dealing with given limitations. Guess people that are doing smart things with limited hardware resources like the ESP8266 can understand what I´m thinking about :)

Best regards and big thanks for your continuous improvement of this ESPeasy project!

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Re: ESP32 installation & Replacement of PCF8574

#6 Post by TD-er » 25 May 2022, 23:11

Yep, I agree that where we're trying to squeeze out the last byte of useful use on limited devices like the ESP8266, it is a huge overkill to have to download 650 MByte to get one or two bin files of less than a MB.

But there is only so much time in a day and for example the last week I also spent way more time on the PlatformIO issues that I would have liked.
So for now it is what it is and I will try to make it even more data-efficient in the downloads too for the next build(s).

N.B. even using a faster internet connection, you will only download these 650 Mbyte ZIP files from GitHub at about 100 Mbps. So for that reason alone such large ZIP files are an extra penalty.

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