Let's Control It

I have been trying to flash my newly bought Sonoff Basic(8285) using FTDI (FT232RL). But it's not flashing . All connection is ok .While connected to computer the device functions normally. I have brought the device to bootloder moood. on the flasher web it shows "INSTALL
Failed to initialize. Try resetting your device or holding the BOOT button while selecting your serial port."
1.I'm using windows pc
2.I have shared board picture
3.I desperatley need solution . please
can what's app me (+8801742067778)

I suspect that the board is not going into flash mode.
- Remove 3.3V power from the Sonoff
- Press and hold the button
- Connect 3.3V power to the Sonoff
- Hold the button for a few more seconds, then release
- Start the flash procedure (Click Install button in browser, or Flash button in ESPEasy flasher)
- Wait for completion
- Remove power from the Sonoff
- Wait a few seconds
- Connect 3.3V power to the Sonoff
- After a few (~10-20) seconds the ESPEasy WiFi AP should be visible from your WiFi list (either PC or mobile phone)

If that still won't work, get a separate, more powerful, 3.3V power supply to power the Sonoff during flash, often the USB provided power is not (stable) enough or the wires are too thin.

The provided power i checked with multimeter is 3.19v is it okay?

The device is running smoothly using this 3.19 V. IS IT Exact 3.3v needed. Pressing button i took it to bootlooder mood. But it didn’t work.

If it runs at 3.19V then that is within the 5-10% margin, so I expect that should be fine, a bit higher would be nicer though.

Have you tried swapping the RX and TX pins? That often helps too, as both devices have their own perspective on that, so TX on FTDI should go to RX on Sonoff, etc.

Of course i did that rx tx swipe. Don't know what's the issue

Have you tested the wires? I've too often used a fresh set of wires, stuff not working as expected, to find 1 (and sometimes even 2...) that's actually not conducting from one side to the other

Are other serial ports connected to the computer? I.E. Is COM5 the serial port the FTDI board is connected to?

(Yes, silly suggestions, but I've been in IT for > 35 years, and know that anything is possible, and Mr. Murphy is not your friend either...)

Com5 available. I updated the driver. Infact i tried in three different laptops . Tested all wires continuity. But still not working.

When using the serial monitor of the ESPEasy flasher, can you seen any output when the device is reset (without keeping the button pressed)? It should at least send out the regular rom boot message, AFAIK. Baud rate should be 115200.

There is still the possibility that the serial port of the Sonoff is broken, f.e. if 5V signals have been applied to it via the FTDI adapter.

Bud rate 115200. When long pressing the button i plug the usb then free my hand no light in the actual device. Then i flash. I don’t know what you meant by resetting the device. By the way i never made it 5v. Can we talk over a phone call?

neuznadim wrote: ↑22 Jan 2022, 16:07 I don’t know what you meant by resetting the device.

Connect serial, then connect power to Sonoff, without pressing the button, so a normal boot of the device. That should at least output something comprehensible to the serial port

Have you checked out my attached screenshots to this post?. May i contact with you over a what's aop or any social media call?

Ath wrote: ↑22 Jan 2022, 16:44 [...]
Connect serial, then connect power to Sonoff, without pressing the button, so a normal boot of the device. That should at least output something comprehensible to the serial port

Not always, as the ESP8266 often has a 26 MHz crystal and then the flash boot mode will operate in a very uncommon baudrate of 26/40 * 115200.
So if it enters flash mode, you may not see any usable texts... but that's good

Some of those Sonoff devices have really flaky buttons, so you may -for now- try to short the button pads on the PCB if they are well accessible.
This will make it a bit more likely you may enter flash mode.

After i put it on bootloader mood it doesn't show any lights on the onboarded led. Isn't it a sign that it really goes to flashing /bootloader mood?

Nope, the ESP does seem quite "dead" when put in flash mode.
It only accepts to load some code into RAM to execute during flashing.
Every flasher tool does have some binary code specific to that chip to execute.
For example to accept GZipped binary format, or to compute the checksum of the file being flashed.
If there is nothing sent to the ESP in this mode, you can only see some kind of "greeting" if you put your serial port to 74880 baud. (on ESP with 26 MHz crystal, which is almost all ESP8266/ESP8285)
So if you have your serial port set to 115200 baud, you may see some garbage. (if not suppressed by your terminal application)

TD-er wrote: ↑22 Jan 2022, 20:05 Nope, the ESP does seem quite "dead" when put in flash mode.
It only accepts to load some code into RAM to execute during flashing.
Every flasher tool does have some binary code specific to that chip to execute.
For example to accept GZipped binary format, or to compute the checksum of the file being flashed.
If there is nothing sent to the ESP in this mode, you can only see some kind of "greeting" if you put your serial port to 74880 baud. (on ESP with 26 MHz crystal, which is almost all ESP8266/ESP8285)
So if you have your serial port set to 115200 baud, you may see some garbage. (if not suppressed by your terminal application)

My Sonoff basic is fully functional even when it's connected through FTDI to a windows laptop. It just not letting me flash. Is sonoff started encoding their devices. I don’t know what's going on. My soldering also good. Any idea what i can do now?