HELP! ESP32-CAM is winning! I'm on the other end of that stick.

@ctoldman40

Posted by: @ctoldman40

Hi All,

I'm hoping that someone can help me, I'm at my wits end. I got these from Amazon:

ACEIRMC 2pcs ESP32-CAM WiFi Bluetooth Camera Module Development Board ESP32 with Camera Module OV2640 2MP for Arduino

I'm using an FTDI to connect to the module. I'm running Windows 10 and attempting to load the cam web server sketch. The board is "AI Thinker ESP32-CAM". When doing a check compile, I get a clean result (I had a streak of getting Java errors on check compiles but haven't seen those in a while).

When trying to upload the sketch I get:

Arduino: 1.8.12 (Windows 10), Board: "AI Thinker ESP32-CAM"

Sketch uses 2100679 bytes (66%) of program storage space. Maximum is 3145728 bytes.
Global variables use 53552 bytes (16%) of dynamic memory, leaving 274128 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 327680 bytes.
An error occurred while uploading the sketch
Traceback (most recent call last):
esptool.py v2.6
File "esptool.py", line 2959, in <module>
Serial port COM3
File "esptool.py", line 2952, in _main
File "esptool.py", line 2652, in main
File "esptool.py", line 222, in __init__
File "site-packages\serial\__init__.py", line 88, in serial_for_url
File "site-packages\serial\serialwin32.py", line 62, in open
serial.serialutil.SerialException: could not open port 'COM3': WindowsError(2, 'The system cannot find the file specified.')
Failed to execute script esptool

I haven't been able to find any references to these errors anywhere else. Any ideas? Any help would be much appreciated.

Jan

A couple of things:

Make sure you have the correct COM port selected, as that is one of the error messages.

Also, did you hold down the enable button whilst uploading the sketch?

Cheers.

@frogandtoad

Thank you for your time!

I don't have any place to select a Com port that I can find. There is a line in the "Tools" menu that says "Com Port" but is greyed out and not active.

If by "enable button" you mean the reset button on the under side of the cam board, yes, I tried it both ways.

Tnx, Jan

@ctoldman40

Look in device manager under ports and look for an entry that looks something like this. This is what my FTDI looks like

I thought for sure I had more than one to give you a comparison, but this is the only one I could find

@ctoldman40

Posted by: @ctoldman40

@frogandtoad

Thank you for your time!

I don't have any place to select a Com port that I can find. There is a line in the "Tools" menu that says "Com Port" but is greyed out and not active.

If by "enable button" you mean the reset button on the under side of the cam board, yes, I tried it both ways.

Tnx, Jan

That's clearly a problem if the COM port cannot be found... did you need to download a separate driver for the FTDI adapter or did windows provide a generic one for you?  You might want to check out Device Manager as per Spyder's comment, to review the status of it, as it might not have installed correctly - Make sure it's connected when you check.

@frogandtoad, @Spyder

Thank you for  your attention. I now know what happened. While I slept, some time ago, Microsoft was up to its shenanegans, and updated my Windows 10 to its latest version. In so doing, it deleted all of my COM ports. The "add legacy hardware" solution isn't working in that it adds COM port 7 and goes on from there and I need COM3. I will update here if and when I find a solution.

Again, thanks,

Jan

@ctoldman40

I personally delete COM ports that I don't need, and allow plug and play to reinstall new a driver and or port as needed.  Note that Windows also hides old COM ports, etc... from us by default, so go to view show hidden devices to see them all.

Good luck 🙂

@frogandtoad, @Spyder

SUCCESS!! Thanks again.

Next week, I'll open a topic elsewhere on the forum to discuss the project that the camera will be part of.

-j

My esp32 cam says

[E][camera.c:1049] camera_probe(): Detected camera not supported.
[E][camera.c:1249] esp_camera_init(): Camera probe failed with error 0x20004

just change the 3v to 5v on both units - fixed it

@ctoldman40

I am having a problem as well, though I am using a mac.  My sketch compiles without errors, and I can see serial ports but when I try to upload I get this:

I installed the 2.4.4 driver from FTDI.  Before installing that I was getting a "fatal error timed out waiting for packet header" rather than packet content.

Any ideas?  I have also tried on my PC running windows 10. I can see and select several com ports (1, 3, 4) but get the same "timed out waiting for packet header"  

Any help appreciated.

@tjryan I converted your error message into a text file, it's about 3 pages long and a bit too big for a post!

😎

Bill