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Moderator: Mmiscool

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By Mmiscool
#56119 If the flasher dose not format you can use the format button on the settings page. This will erase all the file system data. It is seperate from the actual formware where the file system is stored. Thats why you dont loose your programs when going frome one version to another.

This should be completly safe.
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By Electroguard
#56122 I didn't know about that different format behaviour, thanks.

B.T.W., one quirk I think I noticed about the 'every other save' problem was that when the Save did fail every other time, the esp rebooted then automatically reconnected, and I seem to remember that if given enough time the 'pre-boot' save often completed AFTER the reboot and still returned an OK acknowledgment (not that I ever trusted it, I would always do another save and wait for it to complete).
The point is, the interpreter still remembered what it was doing before the reboot, even though something went wrong and caused that reboot every other time.
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By Electroguard
#56249 Mmiscool, could you update me on a couple of things when you get a chance, please.

The way I understand the V3 Format failure situation, it only applies to the Flashers Format option, but doing a Format from the Settings page should work ok.
If that's correct, it means that a new device must first be flashed with ESP_Basic without formatting it, in order to connect to its Settings page to subsequently run the Format option from the browser.

Well, I've just tried doing that with the latest Alpha 55 release, and I cannot get the Settings page to even load in the browser unless I first paste a script into Edit and Save it.
Only after doing that am I able to access the Settings page to select the Format option (and of course then lose whatever script was just loaded and saved).

That's a lot of non-intuitive hoops to be jumped through even for an old-timer like me, but I think it's worth mentioning that all first-time newbies don't stand much of a realistic chance unless there are some relevent official instructions they can follow.

The V3 Flasher Format has never worked for me on any computer or ESP device that I have tried. I have no way of knowing if it normally works for anyone, but if not, perhaps it might be better to remove the Format button from the flasher altogether, and just provide alternative instructions for using the browser Settings Format as mentioned in your previous post.

Speaking of info - since I posted about the V3 Format failure, the versions have jumped from Alpha 49 to Alpha 55, but I can't find any info regarding any of the updates... have they all been bug fixes, or are there any Command changes or additions to be aware of?
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By Mmiscool
#56258 For the complete list and log of updates and changes see the following link

https://github.com/esp8266/Basic/compare/NewWebSockets

A note with the flasher. Try creating a brand new folder. Then place the flasher in this folder and run it. See if the format button works then.