Bug: T-Echo fails to provision and is stuck on "device starting" (firmware v1.81+)

[ronangaillard]

Describe the Bug

Yes, this appears to be a reproducible bug. After a successful firmware flash (v1.81+) on a LilyGO T-Echo, the device fails to boot completely. It gets stuck on the "device starting" screen and becomes unresponsive to configuration tools like rnodeconf and the web flasher, which prevents the device from being provisioned.

To Reproduce

1. Use a LilyGO T-Echo device.
2. Flash RNode firmware version 1.81 or newer using the official web flasher.
3. Observe that the flashing process reports success.
4. Watch the device's e-ink screen after it reboots.
5. Attempt to connect to the device using rnodeconf --info <your_serial_port> or the "Provision EEPROM" function in the web flasher.

Expected Behavior

The T-Echo should finalize its boot sequence, display the main status screen (node information, etc.), and be recognized and configurable by rnodeconf and the web flasher.

Logs & Screenshots

Log Output from rnodeconf:

The command rnodeconf --info /dev/cu.usbmodem101 consistently fails with the following output after a timeout:

Opening serial port /dev/cu.usbmodem101... Serial port opened, but RNode did not respond. Is a valid firmware installed?
Got invalid response while detecting device

Device Screen Status:

The e-ink screen is frozen indefinitely on the message: device starting.

System Information

OS and version: macOS

Python version: Python 3.x

Program version:

    RNode Firmware: All versions from v1.81 to latest.

    rnodeconf: Latest version installed via pip.

Additional context

Standard troubleshooting steps have been performed without success:

• Waiting for several minutes after flashing.

• Manually resetting the device multiple times.

• Using different USB cables and ports.

• The issue occurs with both the web flasher and command-line tools.

The problem seems to be that the firmware application stalls early in the boot process, before the serial interface for configuration commands is fully initialized.

[ronangaillard]

Hello,

I've managed to solve the issue. The root cause was not a bug in the RNode firmware itself, but a corrupted LittleFS partition on the T-Echo's internal flash memory.

This corruption was causing the firmware to crash immediately on boot with a C assertion failure (assertion "block < lfs->cfg->block_count" failed), which explains why the device was completely unresponsive to rnodeconf and the web flasher.

The Solution

The solution was to create and flash a minimal Arduino sketch with the sole purpose of erasing and reformatting the LittleFS partition. After running this utility sketch, the flash memory was clean and the RNode firmware could be installed successfully.

Here is the code for the utility sketch that fixed the problem:

#include <Adafruit_LittleFS.h>
#include <InternalFileSystem.h>

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  while (!Serial) {
    delay(10); // Wait for serial connection
  }

  Serial.println("--- LittleFS Formatter ---");

  InternalFS.begin();

  Serial.println("Formatting filesystem... This may take a moment.");

  if (InternalFS.format()) {
    Serial.println("Filesystem formatted successfully!");
  } else {
    Serial.println("Error: Failed to format filesystem.");
  }

  Serial.println("--- Process Complete ---");
  Serial.println("You can now upload the RNode firmware.");
}

void loop() {
  delay(1000);
}

After successfully running this sketch, I was able to flash the RNode Community Edition firmware using make upload-techo, and the device now boots, responds, and can be provisioned correctly.

Not sure it it's the best way of fixing, and if docs is needed !

[hcarrega]

just flash via rnode webflasher and works fine pair with sideband on android,
but i have a few questions, the down button turn off device and the up turn off device to, how to turn light on screen?
thanks