Endless loop on boot after reflashing ESP-12E with AT firmware

Question

I flashed the ESP-12E from AT firmware 2.0 (running ok) to NodeMCU (running ok). When I reflashed it back to the AT 2.0 it is stuck in endless loop on boot:

 ets Jan  8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(3,6)

load 0x40100000, len 2408, room 16 
tail 8
chksum 0xe5
load 0x3ffe8000, len 776, room 0 
tail 8
chksum 0x84
load 0x3ffe8310, len 632, room 0 
tail 8
chksum 0xd8
csum 0xd8

2nd boot version : 1.6
  SPI Speed      : 40MHz
  SPI Mode       : QIO
  SPI Flash Size & Map: 8Mbit(512KB+512KB)
no GPIO select!
jump to run user1 @ 1000

rf_cal[0] !=0x05,is 0xFF

I am sure I flashed it correctly, it was not my first flashing of AT firmware. Just to be sure:

esp_init_data_default.bin -> 0x3fc000
blank.bin -> 0x3fe000
boot_v1.6.bin -> 0x0000
user1.1024.new.2.bin -> 0x1000
blank.bin -> 0x7e000

I can even reflash it to the NodeMCU firmware and it works, but reflashing to the AT firmware ends in the same endless loop again.

I suspect the problem is in initialization data, but I'm at my wit's end with it.

Answer 1

Full answer and writeup to the comments:

The error message is due to the bootloader trying to read the contents of its radio-frontend calibration data (hence the name rf_cal). It compares it with a magic number, 0x05, but fails because it reads 0xFF at that point. 0xff is an indication that you read data from flash which was erased. After erasing a flash-sector, the data in it becomes 0xff 0xff 0xff... Hence it seems as if the bootloader is trying to access the data from the wrong address, thus only reading erased flash data. The RF-calibration data is stored in the file esp_init_data_default.bin and must be flashed to the correct address in order for the bootloader to be able to read it.

The NodeMCU documentation tells us the needed address for esp_init_data_default.bin given the size of the flash of our ESP module:

The bootloader messages

2nd boot version : 1.6
SPI Speed      : 40MHz
SPI Mode       : QIO
SPI Flash Size & Map: 8Mbit(512KB+512KB)

indicate that the flashed firmware (or that what is overriden by esptool.py) uses the 8 MBit flash size. There should be two ways to fix this:

• Put esp_init_data_default.bin to the address the 8Mbit (1 MByte) bootloader expects, which is 0xfc000
• Force the usage of the 32 MBit (4 MByte) Flash map by giving esptool.py the parameter --flash_size 32m. This makes esptool.py overwrite a few bytes in the firmware (at 0x000000) to adapt the firmware.

By your comments, method one worked. If there are problems however with the flash or the firmware, consider also trying method 2.