ESP32 WROOM and ESP32 CAM fail to show up when connected to USB

@hurrikane I am mystified. Although I have a few steps to try, I will let you regain your mental health. If you ever want to try again, just send me a PM. 

Are any of the 4 OS a MacOS?

@zander Thanks Ron, no, I have no MAC stuff, I have Windows 7(2), 10 & 11(2) running on PCs, 2 R Pi 3s and an R Pi 4 Raspian Linux, and  Ubuntu running on an old Sony Vaio laptop I recovered from a hard drive failure, so I guess that's 5 OS's. A total of 9 computers, 5 operating systems and I can't talk to a $8 microcontroller over USB, sad. 😞

I've worked with computers for nearly 60 years, since way back in the DEC PDP era. I had a VIC-20, Commodore 64 and an Amiga 1000 before I started building and collecting PCs. I spent my last 20 years working, coding automated test software for inertial guidance systems, specializing in user interface code. I was never really much of a systems guy, At Litton and later Northrop Grumman I just coded, integrated, tested and maintained my C++ code and left the systems questions to the IT guys. This is obviously a systems level problem, likely a driver issue, but I have no idea how to fix it. I only have this ridiculous number of computers because I used to help friends build up PCs and had a bunch of old stuff laying around. As a matter of fact, I just recycled 7 desktops and two very old laptops a month ago and I still have all these systems, sigh. I think I need help.

Anyway, I'm gonna continue researching this as I hate puzzles I can't solve. Every other project of Bill's I have tried has been fun, and a great learning experience, and I'm gonna solve this puzzle, I think...

I would like to hear the steps you mentioned, at this point it's a challenge.

@hurrikane My feeling is you are misunderstanding one point along the way. I was hoping you had a Mac or iPhone or Apple Tablet so we could Facetime and I could watch you do the steps. Give me a few hours to get my Win11 PC up to snuff. I will attempt to get the ESP32CAM webserver running there so I can give you examples that are relevant. It sounds like a driver issue, but isn;t windows supposed to install them automatically?

One suggestion, let's get the FTDI setup working first, this will prove the card is ok, and also that the sample CameraWebServer works.

You did try FTDI I think and it did not work, is that correct?

BTW, I am Ron, what is your name?

@hurrikane Check your email, or here above right and click the envelope icon.

@hurrikane I sent a second PM with my phone number. I am 100% sure I can sort this out in a few minutes if I can direct your fingers precisely. Either call, text, or use google chat (preferred as we can do video) I have Gigabit internet so bandwidth is no problem.

LATE NEWS: I did a successful upload to the AI-THINKER board at least 4 times and the WROOM-ESP32-CAM once.

Then I decided to video the process and the first time it uploaded but the video was junk so I set up to shoot again. Since then I cannot upload to the AI-THINKER even if it's just a Bkink sketch.

I just had windows do a disk cleanup and I am going to try to turn off OneDrive as there have been bugs in both areas recently, I even reported one. Will get back to you.

Posted by: @hurrikane

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I just started to work with, or rather tried to work with ESP 32s. I have 2 ESP32 CAM boards and neither will show up on the tools menu when connected to the USB adapter board and a USB cable to my workstation.

I been reading this thread and I hesitate to post this because

• I'm not confident it resolves the problem
• Even with this I still can't get the ESP32-CAM to work.

So, consider this another data point. I use Windows 11 on a laptop.

My memory is that after I finished building the Elegoo Penguin Arduino robot I went on to the Petoi BittleX Robot, which is ESP32 based. I purchased some ESP32 boards to learn how to program them and that's when I discovered that the Arduino IDE wasn't seeing the board.

This next part is a very vague memory. I recall reading that I needed a driver from Silicon Labs. There was some issue about getting the correct version of the driver. I believe I ended up getting the driver directly from the Silicon Labs website.

After the driver was installed, I could connect the ESP32 but it used a different COM port than the Arduino sketches did. (COM4 rather than COM3). In addition, if I disconnected the ESP32 the COM port disappeared, so it appears the COM ports were being created dynamically, based on what I dunno.

I can load a sketch in the Arduino IDE with no COM port, but I must select a board. I can then compile/verify the code. If I connect ESP32, Windows notifies me that the COM is ready, the IDE sees the new port and makes it available for selection. Same if I disconnect the device; the COM port disappears and the IDE says, "not connected".

So, I needed the USB driver from Silicon Labs to access both Arduino and ESP32 devices.

Having said that, I can compile and upload the RandomNerdCam sketch but when it runs it generates an error message that it failed to initialize. So the connection is working but the sketch isn't, which is a different problem than the OP.

@tfmccarthy There are several different drivers, one is the FTDI, one is from Silicon Labs and one from CH something, that s the CH340 series. ESP32 uses the CH340 series, BUT the FTDI also works.

For windows, drivers are mostly loaded automatically but failures are not unknown.

I was testing on my Win11 mini PC earlier today and had normal success using the FTDI with the AI-THINKER-CAM and the WROVER, but for no reason I can discern, now the AI-THINKER refuses to connect. The only thing I haven't tried is rebooting the machine simply because that should never be a solution.

I am out of energy for today but I will try a few searches before bed time. 

Show me the entire error log and I will see if I recognize the error you are encountering BUT remember almost all the nerds stuff was written a long time ago and their business model has almost zero maintenance budgeted. I will take a quick peek at their code but I think I know what I will see. I will update in a few.

@tfmccarthy I mis-read your post. Is it a 105 error? The most common error is the camera is not properly inserted into the clamp. Take it out and make sure it is even and it should almost snap into the final position.

Posted by: @zander

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There are several different drivers, one is the FTDI, one is from Silicon Labs and one from CH something, that s the CH340 series. ESP32 uses the CH340 series, BUT the FTDI also works.

That rings a bell. I did have to check the chip on the CAM (is 340G) so I knew which version to use.

Posted by: @zander

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I mis-read your post. Is it a 105 error? The most common error is the camera is not properly inserted into the clamp

Indeed, it is a 105 error. I'll reseat and give it a shot.

I don't want to derail from @hurrikane's issue, though. I just thought it might be the USB driver.

@tfmccarthy Nope, 105 is camera cable OR wrong camera selected in source code.

@tfmccarthy @hurrikane @schober Gentlemen, we all have had issues with uploading to the ESP32CAM board recently. I have been using this board for a few years now and have not had many issues with it so attempted to explain uploading. In my research I did a few successful uploads, but then all of a sudden I couldn't. Long story short I don't know yet what is causing this but today I will do some testing on both Mac and Win11 using all 3 chips, FTDI, CP210, CH340 and with BOOT / Reset buttons pressed at various times. Hopefully, I can get this done in a few hours and will reply to this post with my findings. what I will tell you now though is I just finished shopping for the ever-so-tiny SEEED Studio XIAO version with a camera (and AI) and have placed several items from AE on my wishlist. These are about half the price in units of 10. The AE price will be the lowest even with shipping regardless of your country of residence (tariffs). Time to get busy, and I will get back to you ASAP.

@tfmccarthy @hurrikane @schober I have the answer. Some of the ESP32CAM-MB boards have no connection between the BOOT button and GPIO0 so can not work without surgery/alteration. Some ESP32CAM-MB boards are flaky. What that means is that if you do get connected and try an upload, the port will get disconnected if you move the cable. Conclusion-Do not use the ESP32CAM-MB boards unless you are lucky enough to have MB boards that work.

When using the ESP32CAM-MB boards, press the BOOT button before inserting the USB cable if it is a 2 button MB board.

FTDI apparently only works with the CP210 chips not the FT232RL and is what I will use from now on.

Here is a link to Amazon.ca, change .ca to whatever your local Amazon is and you should get your page, if not just search Amazon on FTDI then page search CP210. I got 3 hits on first page but the other two are very expensive probably for some special purpose, this link is 2 for $11.97 CDN.

Amazon.ca Link

@tfmccarthy @hurrikane @schober HOLD THE PRESSES.

It turns out I have a cable that tests OK on my USB tester, but is flaky on the MB board. When I use a different cable, ALL the 1 button MB boards now work and the one remaining two button board works if I press the BOOT button when I see 'connecting'.

The FT232RL FTDI board continues to NOT work.

What I advise is dedicate one screen to the device manager so that when you plug the board in you can see the com port get created. Now in a second screen select that port along with your board, then change the #define to be the one correct one. It should work.

EDIT: IF you use the FTDI, after successful upload remove the jumper between G and GPIO0.

@zander Ron, My name is Harry, Harry Kane, hence the hurrikane handle. I was Hurrikane all thru school, boy scouts and even in the Air Force, couldn't get away from it. 😆 

Sorry about not getting into this for a bit, but life gets in the way sometimes.

Yes, I thought Windows should automatically install drivers like it does with wireless mice, keyboards, drawing tablets, external drives, thumb drives etc., but no matter what I do these 3 ESP32 boards do not show up as USB devices. Ron, I don't have a problem uploading, I can't even get to a problem uploading. I'd be glad to have uploading problems instead of devices not there at all.  The one that really fries me is the Xiao, as it's the newest board I have, and as such I really hoped it would show up just like in Bill's tutorial, but although I followed that video exactly. several times. no show.

I agree I must be missing something, but I cannot for the life of me see what it can be. My computers are all polling the ports and everything else shows up just not these.

I do appreciate your help on this, but it's so frustrating not being able to solve such a simple (on it's face) problem that I just have to put it aside for a while. Back into the static shielding bag with these guys and up on the shelf they go again.

I've got a lot of projects on other boards, so I think I'll work on those since they all show up on USB port.

Thanks Ron

@hurrikane Here is some video I shot (poorly) of an ESP32-WROVER, XIAO ESP32S3, and AI-THINKER all showing win11 device manager recognition, and the esp32cam port auto-detect and upload and the cam working.

File is 10x too big so here is link Link to video