ESP8266 Community Forum

The board is a nodeMCU esp8266

I got one of these boards from amazon and I wanted to start messing around with it. The problem is that I always get the same error: “timeout waiting for packet header”. I’m running Linux and haven’t actually downloaded any CH340G driver since it said mostly everywhere that Ubuntu already came with one. The error first appeared while trying to upload code from the Arduino IDE and later while trying to flash the nodeMCU firmware from the terminal into it. The serial port is ttyS0 if it is of any help. Any advice?

To get the board into download flash mode GPIO00 has to be low during a reset. This can be done automatically when the Arduino IDE tries to download but it does rely on the DTR and RTS signals on the serial interface on the board working.

To verify whether this might be the problem try putting the board into download mode manually using the 2 buttons on the board. Hold down the FLASH (GPIO00 button and press and release the RESET button. You can then release the FLASH utton and start the download from the IDE.

If that works then maybe you need to use a different driver for the USB that supports DTR and RTS.

you are sure it is ttyS0?
unplug the board and do "lsusb", then reconnect the board, wait some time and look at "lsusb" again.
If there is no change, do a "dmesg" and look at lines close to the end...
I'd say ttyS0 is the serial on your mobo and no wonder it is not responding to flash commands.

It should be something like /dev/ttyUSB0 ...