#help-with-circuitpython

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

viral flume
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and what resolution

abstract turret
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ov5640; QVGA (320x240)

viral flume
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That's 2.3 million pixels per second. Where are you storing them?

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the OV5640 datasheet isn't clear to me if the max transfer rate is with or without JPEG compression. (I'd expect with to be slower.)

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I also don't know how fast an ESP32 can injest that data. but even 30 fps seems fast to me.

abstract turret
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I don't have a way to calculate fps now but I got it at an acceptable rate with SVGA (800x600)

viral flume
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I mean if using a larger image got you the FPS you wanted, then why not use the larger size?

abstract turret
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I also switched to a different streaming approach

wanton wigeon
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Hi!

Any help is appreciated. 🙂

I've followed the steps as instructed by the wonderful Prof G in the video linked below (1), but I keep getting the error message shown in the screenshot. I am using a Pi Pico RP2040.

Is my board broken?

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPnyEJX0bUY&list=PLBJJ76R_ry5T3X72OIDkMOXQIdmcvSkue&index=3

c7a821cd-2dc4-4637-aad1-8a84a3005b6f.png
YouTube
Build With Prof. G.
A First Program, print, with the CircuitPlayground Bluefruit or Exp...

Learn to use the print statement to output text to the console. We'll use the code editor at code.circuitpython.org, learn about the code.py file, code completion, color-coded printing, , and more!
Part of the playlist for Prof. John Gallaugher's university course Physical Computing: Art, Robotics, and Tech for Good. You can find the entire fr...

▶ Play video
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Reinstallation of the UF2-file a second time in the bootloader helped!

image.png
hoary frigate
wanton wigeon
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So far 😅

waxen topaz
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Are there any alternatives to print debugging in CircuitPython? Currently just connecting to serial console, running my code, and checking the output. Would be nice to have a pdb equivalent so I can evaluate line by line. Any ideas?

shrewd meadow
# waxen topaz Are there any alternatives to print debugging in CircuitPython? Currently just c...

There is a new IDE named Rovari that was mentioned here on discord and in the newsletter recently. I think it's not released for general use yet but there were some videos shared of a debugger feature in it. Keep an eye out for that and it maybe worth a try.

As for right now one option is to utilize the REPL to execute code one line at a time. Or even combine local files with the REPL to run a program up to a certain point and then have live REPL access to instpect variables or run whatever is needed next to see how it behaves. You can save the "setup" portion of your code in a file like "start.py" or whatever name you want and then in the REPL run it with import start. The code inside of it will execute and assuming it doesn't contain an infinite loop the REPL will get control afterward with all of the variables and functions from start available.

waxen topaz
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@hot bison a couple questions on the ANCS library (going off of the docs):

  1. is the property active_notifications equivalent to "notifications already in ANCS since connection was established between my peripheral and iOS" ?
  2. Each notification has a boolean property "removed" to signal they have been cleared from the iOS device, but I'm seeing that the wait_for_new_notifications fn only returns a generator for new active notifications, and the active_notifications dict only returns, well, notifications that have not been cleared. Is this property just inherited from the ANCS Specification or is there a way to get notifications that were visible, but have since been cleared?
hot bison
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it's been a while since I used it

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I think it was meant to show the current state

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I was using it on my CP watch

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I've switched to android now though...

waxen topaz
hot bison
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right, in case you have your own copy of the notification still

fresh merlin
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Hey, im currently trying to get an ST7735R SPI display working on my xiao rp2040, and im currently running the circuitpython 10.1.4 release from the circuitpython website.
i've managed to get everything working for the most part but as soon as i try to load the fourwire module, it seems to be missing

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has this module been deprecated in the newer versions of circuitpython, or am i missing something

abstract wedge
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it should be there, what is the exact error you are getting?

fresh merlin
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in the init for my display i'm calling this function:
display_bus = displayio.FourWire(

it's returning this error
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'FourWire'

abstract wedge
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do you have a file anywhere on your CIRCUITPY drive called fourwire.py or fourwire.mpy?

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ah, sorry, no

shrewd meadow
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fourwire moved to it's own module instead of displayio I believe.

abstract wedge
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ignore that

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what @shrewd meadow says, you have to do import fourwire and then fourwire.FourWire(

fresh merlin
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that seems to have fixed it, thanks @abstract wedge & @shrewd meadow , i was stuck at that for longer than i'd like to admit 😅

shrewd meadow
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@fresh merlin did you find example code somewhere with the displayio import in it? If so please link to it so we can get it corrected.

fresh merlin
shrewd meadow
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ok no worries. Glad you got it worked out. We did a push to get everything converted but possible some got missed so always worth a check.

hoary frigate
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I have an S3 Reverse TFT Feather and I'm trying to update it from CircuitPython 9.03 to 10.x on macOS. I've tried on two different Macs, and when I drag the UF2 to it, I get the error: The operation can't be completed because the device disappeared. The other thing weird thing is that it's permantenly in bootloader mode now - if I unplug it from the Mac and plug it back in or into a different Mac, it shows up as FTHRS3BOOT, not CircuitPy. Anyone seen this happen on a Mac before?

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Errors out on Windows too. Maybe something with the board?

windows.png
dense olive
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staying in bootloader may mean the CircuitPython volume is corrupted, not sure why dropping a UF2 wouldn't work

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(all the usual troubleshooting steps: UF2 matches the board, power and cables good, try esptool or web serial tool)

hoary frigate
hoary frigate
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So I get an error when trying to copy the factory test UF2, but then it does reboot and runs the test UF2 successfully. Putting it back into boot mode, I cannot copy over the normal UF2 or connect it to the "Open Installer" on its CircuitPython download page, it's unable to open a serial connection. 🤷

lone cloud
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also, i had to close Chrome and restart it at one point to get the web installer to be able to use the port,..

dense olive
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oh, right, the 4MB boards had the OTA partition removed

halcyon summit
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In my foolish haste, I thought that displayio.bitmap could be used for a monochrome bitmap. It can, but it doesn't do any bitpacking, so it's not actually any more memory-efficient than a bytearray, which is what I'd replaced. Thus, now I'm wondering:

  1. If there's a different builtin that's better-suited to my use-case, or
  2. How best I should go about adding a custom extension—is there a Cython-like facility, for example? Or am I going to be rolling my own .UF2?
sick cairn
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There is an mpy compiler or you can add features to the UF2

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It depends whether you want to implement in C or Python

halcyon summit
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I'm looking for the perf of C, but I'd certainly welcome the ability to implement in Python. I've seen .mpys floating around, but don't really know much about them. Raw bytecode?

sick cairn
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Bytecode for the Python VM, yes. You build the mpy compiler as part of the toolchain for building circuitpython. Bitpacking in Python is awkward though because the integers don’t have a fixed size. So I think a C implementation is what you want.

hoary frigate
lone cloud
hoary frigate
shrewd meadow
hoary frigate
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Copying the CircuitPython UF2 still results in an error "The operation can't be completed because the device disappeared" and it reboots into FTHRS3BOOT again. 🙁

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I'm gonna pivot to using a MatrixPortal for now

dense olive
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ROM boot mode + esptool should work ...if not there may be something deeper going on

dusky shard
halcyon summit
dusky shard
# hoary frigate Thanks - what's weird is that my Mac wasn't seeing the Feather, but when I put i...

"when I put it into ROM boot mode using boot and reset, it now does show FTHRS3BOOT on my Mac"

It if was placed in ROM boot mode using boot and reset it should not show the FTHRS3BOOT. According to this page: https://learn.adafruit.com/esp32-s3-reverse-tft-feather/factory-reset#factory-reset-and-bootloader-repair-3107941
"No USB drive will appear when you've entered the ROM bootloader. This is normal!". The UF2 bootloader mode is where the FTHRS3BOOT shows up. Also when you next have it at UF2 (FTHRS3BOOT drive showing) check the INFO_UF2.TXT file. If it shows version 0.32.0 or earlier you have the wrong flash layout for Circuit Python 10.0.0+ and need to update the bootloader. (see the bottom of the page: https://circuitpython.org/board/adafruit_feather_esp32s3_reverse_tft/ ).

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I've gotten pretty accustomed to using epstool because I keep switching my boards between Arduino IDE (wiping out the UF2 Bootloader) and Circuit Python. For a while I was directly flashing the Circuit Python .bin files instead of the .uf2 version but found that I liked being able to drag a different CP version when testing bugs to the FTHRS3BOOT rather than always using esptool so reflashed the uf2 bootloader (tinyuf2-adafruit_feather_esp32s3_reverse_tft-0.35.0-combined.bin) using the ROM bootloader mode.

You probably already know but any CP drive files are lost when reflashing the UF2 bootloader but are 'normally' preserved when changing CP versions by copying a CP .uf2 file to the FTHRS3BOOT drive -- backups are still a good idea.

dusk badge
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Current goal is to outline touch hotspots on a project that started with this code https://learn.adafruit.com/pyportal-alarm-clock
and led to this code
https://pastebin.com/VvgEM39Y
@ line 254 is the button section I am working on
I have read about displayio, display-shapes, display-text, and between api changes and different forum opions I am very confused

PyPortal Alarm Clock

Wake up on time, see what the weather is, and start your robot coffee maker... all before getting out of bed.

Pastebin
27code.py - Pastebin.com

Pastebin.com is the number one paste tool since 2002. Pastebin is a website where you can store text online for a set period of time.

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no outline shows up as it is in the pastebin

sick cairn
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What is your question?

dusk badge
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Current goal is to outline touch hotspots

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how do I outline the touch areas

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?

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I try reading the Adafruit learn section but everytime I think I have a solution, its old api that no longer works

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posting in forum

dusk badge
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I have trouble communicating sometimes I will just use forum .maybe I wont add to noise there. I know many of you are tired of me bringing this project here. I understand

sick cairn
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You want to draw rectangles around the on-screen buttons?

coral needle
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Help installing circuit Phyton on HD-WF2 Its ESp32-s3 based

sick cairn
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I use the web installer in Chrome, it’s pretty great

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What issues are you having?

dense olive
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@coral needle if there isn't already a board definition (https://circuitpython.org/downloads), you have two options: (1) create one; (2) find a board with similar MCU module/chip, RAM, pins, etc. ...good place to start are the Espressif dev kit boards.

dusky shard
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Assuming something like a QtPy ESP32-S3 or Feather ESP32-S2/3 should I be able to see console/boot up output on the board.TX pin? Looking at the CircuitPython source it looks like the UART Console is enabled but maybe I'm mistaken on what that refers to. If not by default is there an environment variable to enable. I thought it would be nice to have a secondary way to debug -- for instance when on battery and not usb connected.

dense olive
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iirc board.TX will have the debug console, which won't get much output except on reset unless DEBUG is enabled in the build

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DEBUG=1

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you can add additional print statements to code that will output there

dusky shard
# coral needle Help installing circuit Phyton on HD-WF2 Its ESp32-s3 based

I can confirm that often a close board download can be used if an exact match is not available. Beware of needing the same type of flash between the one you have and the one downloaded from CircuitPython. A lot of the pin definitions may be wrong (e.g. SPI, I2C, etc) so you will have to research and use direct pin numbers rather than the nice ones. For instance board.TX might be referring to the wrong pin on your board. Also things like a neopixel may not work since the pin that is on is compiled in. This note says someone 'successfully' compiled CircuitPython for the board in Feb of last year but they obviously did not submit their results back to the CircuitPython Github since it is not in there. https://github.com/mrcodetastic/ESP32-HUB75-MatrixPanel-DMA/discussions/667#discussioncomment-12040392

dusky shard
# dense olive `DEBUG=1`

Thanks a bunch -- good to know. I did add print statements to make sure my monitor system was working. So even crashes etc won't got to UART TX unless DEBUG=1?

dense olive
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that is correct, must rebuild

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if you are getting the reset dump of a few lines when restting the board, that's a good start

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Idon't know if this is on by default on something like a QT Py, but for a dual-connector board like Espressif dev kits, reset will trigger some output lines on the alternate USB

dusky shard
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I'm not desperate yet 😀 but I guess I'll need to practice my first CP build in case I need it.

As an example of wishing to have better/quicker info, sometimes there is some register dump that I miss the first part of when CP is booting (in green if I recall correctly). An always on/instantly available TX serial would capture that where the USB serial needs to fully come up to show the date.

I do have a couple of dev kits so I'll try that out. Most of my stuff is QtPy or Feather ESP32-Sx.

dense olive
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looking at the QT Py learn guide, TX is GPIO5, so I'm not sure if anything goes there by default

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I think there's a way to re-route console debug to another pin from default, but I'm not sure the mechanics

dusky shard
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BINGO, thank you for that last insight. I don't know why I assumed that the QtPy and the Feather ESP32-S3 TX pins would act the same. The feather even says Debug next to its TX pin. I get ALL the boot stuff on the Feather while watching the TX pin. I don't have to have debug everywhere -- on my preferred platform of the feathers it is perfect!

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This is a lot of the information I've wished I could get easily. Thank you!!

dense olive
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P.S. if you do rebuild with DEBUG=1, you may find there's not enough room. You have to disable one or more modules in that case... ulab is a big one and sometimes enough, though it's been awhile since I've done it so I'm not sure how tight the debug build is

dusky shard
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Looking closer at the Feather ESP32-S3 4MF 2MPSRAM I have there are two TX pins called out with the one on the end labeled Debug and DB on the front side of the board -- So now I see that there are two different UARTs with one having the Debug TX pin.

dense olive
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I assume DB is where you're seeing the output upon reset

dusky shard
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Yep.

I did find that nothing from Circuit Python operation seems to go to that port -- haven't managed a crash yet. So I guess I can't use the DB port for catching fatal errors in my CP programs with an unattached USB cable.

dense olive
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not without building DEBUG=1

warped flicker
sick cairn
warped flicker
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even if it is, it probably relies on some stdlib stuff that cp doesn't port

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i think i'll just stick to raw websockets for talking to the feathers

dusky shard
edgy mountain
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Hey all, I'm struggling with memory allocation on a Trinket M0. I've been doing my best to rearrange code, force the garbage collector, and overall do whatever I can think of to keep memory purged and allow the code to load but I'm just failing miserably. The exact spot in code changes at times, sometimes it fails to load a library (like adafruit_ds3231) and others it fails in my code where it's trying to assign a variable.

I've also gone through the process of compiling down to .mpy and then just having the main code.py import that .mpy file but that's not helping either.

This is affecting different files as well for different functions (I'm writing a program that can do one of three things depending on what file it sees in storage). One of them has a large lookup table that I can't really reduce further than I have, another one for some reason just taps out even though the file is only about 3 kB in size.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

bleak tartan
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can this run alongside CP

dense olive
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@bleak tartan I think you'd have to build it into the CircuitPython core, ideally as a native module with CP APIs. At first glance, it looks resource-heavy and it may be very challenging to fit it without removing other modules (perhaps many).

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Another option might be to implement it on a co-processor, with some API interface to a CP library on the main processor?

edgy mountain
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@dense olive Yeah, I went through pretty much everything on that page trying to get the footprint down. As it is I seem to be starting the script with only 14 kB of RAM so it appears half of it has gone to the CircuitPython environment. In my case the code is a lot of basic calculations to generate a list for generating bit patterns to send out one of the digital ports but once the list is created it's static and I delete all the other temporary variables. Even with my largest program I'm measuring about 11 kB free after loading libraries for board, time, adafruit_ticks, and digitalio (so a total of 2 kB consumption).

But the biggest problem is wanting to use the DS3231 for RTC functions in my application. As soon as I load that library I'm out of RAM. I finally tested it and simply loading the library tries to allocate over 12 kB of RAM and I'm already short. I'm sure it's a combination of many of its dependencies, too, but that's amazingly large compared to some of the other libraries. Given that much RAM allocation I couldn't even really run something else with the RTC, too, because I only have 14 kB to start. Maybe that library needs some major refactoring and cleanup?

dense olive
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the DS3231 library itself looks fairly light, and only imports what it needs from bus_device and register, so maybe those are large (I wouldn't be surprised if I2C takes a chunk)

edgy mountain
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Yes that's true the DS3231 is slim since it's relying heavily on the I2C functions. However, the I2C being a heavily used library I'm a bit surprised it's so large. I would think there are ways of lightweighting it or making it more modular so that only the necessary pieces are pulled in instead of the whole thing. Either way it's unfortunate. I was using the M0 because of its low power operation and small size but I also did want the calendar on the DS3231. And the main reason for using the CircuitPython over regular C was because the M0 has the flash-drive over USB feature so I don't have to have a compiler to make changes.

dusky shard
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I have a QtPy ESP32-S3 4M2PSRAM that has been running fine for months with a WiFi connection to a line of sight AP 15 feet away. All of a sudden it was completely refusing to connect to the AP. Tried other APs and SSIDs and it was just like the WiFi radio was broken "Unknown Failure 2". I upgraded the UF2 Bootloader and installed latest CP 10.1.4 and libraries and still the WiFi refused to connect. I moved everything to a brand new board taken from the plastic wrap and it immediately started working.

While playing with the 'defective' board I saw the default wifi.radio.tx_power was 20. I set it to 8 and immediately all the various WiFi tests started it working again. So the board worked with tx_power=20 for months but now is only working at a lower power. tx_power is now being set in that board's boot.py to make it usable.

Has anyone ever seen this before?

sick cairn
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Never had that issue. Sounds like a thermal problem with the amplifier- maybe it gets distortion when it heats up?

ancient crown
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it could be a general issue with the power setting - but why it was working and then suddenly stopped is a mystery

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is 8 the only value that works?

dusky shard
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It is possible that it is running slightly hotter since it is summer in Southern Calif but I try and keep the room under 80. @ancient crown I'm trying it currently at 10 and it is working so far. I need to write some code to disconnect/reconnect and log failures.

ancient crown
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ok, could be thermal related as well.

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i ran into something similar when using a qt py mounted on a breadboard

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had to adjust the tx_power setting to get it working

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if it seems to be connecting ok with the lower setting, then that's a good solution

dusky shard
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Interesting to find, it won't be enough to place the tx_power setting in boot.py only. In many of my programs I use wifi.radio.enabled=False to save power when I don't need a connection and I just found that when reenabling by setting back to True the tx_power is defaulted again to 20. So I'll have to make sure that wherever I re-enable the WiFi I set the tx_power to 15 which seems to be the sweet spot for being able to connect to WiFi.

dense olive
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there's some possibility the access point(s) are changing some of their settings due to changes in the local environment

lament peak
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Hi all — I'm running CircuitPython 10.1.4 on an Adafruit Qualia ESP32-S3 driving a 3.4" 480×480 RGB TTL TFT (SQUARE34). I'm seeing screen tearing/glitching that appears to be a race between display.refresh() and the parallel RGB DMA scan.

Setup:

auto_refresh=False throughout
Single display.refresh() call per event (dirty flag pattern)
Display group has: 1 full-screen background bitmap, 1 full-screen face bitmap (480×480, pre-built with bitmaptools.blit()), a static battery icon, and ~15 labels
Telemetry refreshes every 10s, face state changes every 5s
What I've tried:

auto_refresh=True — made it worse
Reducing refresh frequency — helps, but glitch still occurs on each refresh
Expanding all bitmaps to full 480×480 to eliminate per-pixel bounds checking — helped
Baking divider lines into the background bitmap to reduce layer count — helped
Removing dynamic bitmap writes (animated battery fill) — helped
Observation: The glitch is clearly in sync with display.refresh() calls. My understanding is the ESP32-S3 RGB peripheral DMA is continuously scanning the single framebuffer while CircuitPython composites into it — no vsync or double-buffering.

Questions:

Is there a way in CircuitPython to sync a refresh with the DMA scan (vsync / frame-complete interrupt)?
Does the Qualia driver support double-buffering, or is there a roadmap for it?
Any other strategies people have used to reduce tearing on parallel RGB displays with displayio?
Thanks!

Rascal_dashboard.jpg
sick cairn
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Tearing on Adafruit Qualia with Square34 TFT

pseudo elm
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Hey everyone, I’m an electrical engineer specializing in PCB design (schematic + layout), and I’ve been working with clients on Fiverr since last year.

I’m looking to expand beyond Fiverr and was wondering if anyone has advice on where to find more opportunities or connect with people who need PCB/electronics work.

hot bison
warped flicker
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how do i make a websocket request, as a client,
from cp?

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like, initiate the connection from a feather to a server

warped flicker
dense olive
silver copper
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Hello, I don't know if this is the right place but I have the RP2040 Feather Adalogger with which I log data via UART onto an SD card. This setup was installed on a UAV and worked during several flights on one day. Then next day we powered it up the setup and I got the error "module object has no attribute 'SD_CLK'" and couldnt proceed with logging. This error pops up in Mu Editor for Circuit Python, I am using the same lines as in the example: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-feather-rp2040-adalogger/sd-card. However when using the example script in Arduino, there is no error and the example file saves normally on the SD card. I was wondering what could be the problem? When I check the available pins, there are no pins with 'SD' in their names.

abstract wedge
misty sorrel
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someone maybe have Adafruit Feather RP2040 with USB Type A Host?
i rly need help bcs i cant use my mouse when im im pluging it into feather

gray cargo
silver copper
# abstract wedge the pins are defined, so they should be there, are you sure you flashed the corr...

I can describe this situation in more detail so you have more context. I have used this board as a logger for a sensor on a UAV. First, I have tested in laboratory conditions. Then we went to field measurements. The first day, everything work as expected, i.e. I plugged the board to the computer to send it time (I don't have a clock or a gps module yet, so this is a workaround), and make sure that the data is saving, then I plug a li-po battery and unplug the board from the computer. Then After the UAV lands, I disconnect the board from the battery and take the SD card to the computer to download the data. I have done it before in the lab many times. My code (which I can upload tomorrow since I don't have discord at my work computer) has a data buffer so the data is saved every x seconds so I minimise the probability of corrupting the data.

So after one day of flying, I went to sleep and went with the same procedure Ive done before. I have not changed any uf2 file or any code, it was all the same. However, when I plugged in the board to the computer to load the time it looked like the board reset because I could see the uf2 folder, and I don't exactly remember how it went from there because I acted fast, but I remember getting the error above, but I don't remember if I flash nuked it first and then got the error but I reset the board, gave it the new uf2 and the necessary packages, and tried to run the code and it gave me the same error. I repeated it 2 times since then making sure I have the correct version, and even running the example SD code:

import os
import busio
import digitalio
import board
import storage
import adafruit_sdcard

Connect to the card and mount the filesystem.

cs = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.SD_CS)
sd_spi = busio.SPI(board.SD_CLK, board.SD_MOSI, board.SD_MISO)

gives me the error that Attribute Error: "module" object has no atribute 'SD_CLK'

However, via arduino IDE the example SD card code worked and the example file saved normally.

abstract wedge
silver copper
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I need to check at my work tomorrow

silver copper
abstract wedge
silver copper
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I only used it from there afaik

glass wigeon
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Im trying to use asyncio with the circuit playground express board. I've installed the asyncio and adafruit_ticks libaries in the lib folder on the board but when I try to import i get this error:

#

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "code.py", line 1, in <module>
File "asyncio/init.py", line 16, in <module>
File "asyncio/core.py", line 17, in <module>
ImportError: no module named 'select'

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What do I do to fix this

gray cargo
mortal spear
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hello, i am using a nrf52840 supermini from ali express running circuit python

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i want to use codedphy as like

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a radio thing

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but i can figure out how to use codedphy

mortal spear
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nevermind

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ig u cant use circuitpy

sick cairn
mortal spear
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i mean theres a lot of support for stuff in the nordic and zephyr sdk that isnt supported in circuitpy

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its probably more work to add it to corcuitpy

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also i might not have enough flash space for circuitpy to be viable for my application

lucid atlas
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WIll the busio.uart method reset_input_buffer() flush all chars from the input buffer or do I need to write my own function to do this using in_waiting or just read in a loop until no chars are found?

dense olive
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it should, I just tested it on RP2350

lucid atlas
dense olive
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there are platform-dependent quirks to UART buffering (and quirks depending on whether flow control is used)... there are several levels of buffering (UART peripheral, CircuitPython software receiver_buffer_size buffer, etc.), and written and in_waiting may or may not be correct (see https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/issues/10621)

silver copper
wanton wigeon
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Hallo!

I am playing around with microcontrollers and would like to move to CircuitPython.

I have rudimentary understanding of Python due to some accidental years at university, but I am very much in the Google-copy-&-paste stage of my coding. I mainly do simple IoT's, such as ON/OFF states control of electronics through WIFI.

I have found excellent (✨) introductory material for how to code these kinds of projects using Aurdino IDE in particular online, but not for CircuitPython.

My question for you, do you have any recommended resource that does "whole project walkthroughs" of IoTs using CircuitPython?

abstract wedge
gray cargo
subtle mantle
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Hello, I'm having a problem with an STM32F411CE WeAct BlackPill with 8MB SPI flash, version 3.1. The CIRCUITPY drive isn't showing up.
I have successfully tested the following CircuitPython versions: 8.2.0, 9.2.4, 9.2.8, 9.2.9, 10.0.0, 10.0.1, 10.0.2, 10.0.3.
With CircuitPython versions 9.2.2 and 9.2.3, the CIRCUITPY drive is no longer displayed, but this is documented.
With versions greater than or equal to 10.1.1, the CIRCUITPY drive is also not displayed. Even the self-compiled versions do not work as expected.
Does anyone have any advice?
THX

gray cargo
abstract turret
#

this one has me scratching my head:

Aborted installing module adafruit_led_animation - not enough free space (103160 < 41984)

On a Gemma M0

#

Maybe the operator is just flipped in the message

solar orchid
#

I think '103160' is actually a negative number that isn't getting printed correctly. The M0 boards have very little space to install additional libraries, and adafruit_led_animation is a pretty big library

abstract turret
grand berry
#

Hi,
I would like to connect a USB MIDI controller to a raspberry pico/pico 2 with its USB in host mode in CirPy. I search adafruit learning guides and try some examples but they end up with a runtime error "No usb host port initialized " when it call usb.core.find(). I guess it want a 2nd usb like the rp2040 feather usb host. I know it is feasible to use the pico usb alone using tinyusb lib in arduino but I have not found yet any example with CirPy that works. Can it be done?

sick cairn
sick cairn
#

I expect that using the native USB port in host mode won't cooperate with CircuitPython's USB workflow. It could possibly work with the web workflow, or you might have to take a different approach (i.e. not CircuitPython)

grand berry
#

Yep it works using aduino or platformio with adafruit TinyUSB, was just curious if was possible with CirPy but seems it's not

sick cairn
#

Sorry. I think it violates the USB spec to be a USB host and device at the same time on the same port

viral flume
#

OTG allows a "device port" to be a "host port", but not at the same time

sick cairn
#

But might be possible if you disable the USB endpoints and only program it in safe mode

#

You’d have to debug over UART then

viral flume
#

which is possible

sick cairn
#

You can redirect the REPL?

viral flume
#

but, for CP, it'd be much easier to use a board with a dedicated host port

viral flume
#

on an RP2040, Host on PIO is the only practical"host" option when working with CP.

viral flume
#

the RP2040's dedicated USB hardware doesn't support device and host roles at the same time.

abstract turret
#

Every time I save code.py on my Adafruit MatrixPortal S3 and it resets I get a OSError: [Errno 5] Input/output error that sometimes persists indefinitely until I re-install CircuitPython. Sometimes hitting the reset button fixes it. It seems like I'm in a spot where I can't recover from it again without a re-flash

dense olive
#

@abstract turret When you save code.py, the code-re-runs, so the exception is probably coming from code.py. You can post the code and the full exception trace (showing line numbers), that will help narrow down the reason. You shouldn't need to re-install if it's code-related.

abstract turret
dense olive
#

It could just be that the exception is intermittent. What is the full exception trace, with line numbers?

lucid atlas
#

I have an rp2040 at a remote site. It is performing data capture and analysis. However, I would to record the data, perhaps up to 1 GB which is greater than the storage of the rp2040 filesystem. What solution might I use to write to a flashdrive?

sick cairn
#

I know there’s support for SD card storage, but I’m not sure about USB flash drives

gray cargo
shrewd meadow
abstract turret
#

New night, new issue. I have several variations of the ESP32-S3 boards (Qt Py with PSRAM, Feather, etc). All of my boards work flawlessly except my 2 brand new Qt Py with no PSRAM. Neither of them can connect to wifi. I tested the same settings.toml and code.py on all other boards and it works fine.

ConnectionError: Unknown failure 2

dusky shard
#

I’ve had the same problem with a qtpy. You might try importing wifi in boot.py. Followed by ‘wifi.radio.tx_power=15’
I found the default of 20 would frequently cause that error. It’s worth a try anyway. Be advised that each time you reinit the WiFi (eg wake from sleep or disable/reenable WiFi you must reset power to 15 because all WiFi resets set it back to 20.

gray cargo
abstract turret
#

@dusky shard @gray cargo that seems to have worked....

#

Adafruit MatrixPortal S3 Corruption

gray cargo
abstract turret
gray cargo
abstract turret
gray cargo
lone cloud
#

I want to access google calendar from an esp32s3 feather. the pyportal calendar example says This project's code uses the CircuitPython OAuth Library for authentication with Google services. Due to Google's update to the OAuth "authentication flow", the library became incompatible. As a result, this project does not currently work (but may in the future)!. It looks like something still doesn't work, can't call google_auth.request_codes(). Anyone know if there's a working way to do this?

#

my code is

scopes = ["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.readonly"]

google_auth = OAuth2(
    requests,
    getenv("GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID"),
    getenv("GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET"),
    scopes,
)

google_auth.request_codes()

using latest oauth2 via circup this morning.
i get oserror -29312.

gray cargo
lone cloud
#

🙁

gray cargo
#

I think we could not figure out an easy to use the OAuth flow, but I don't remember that well.

lone cloud
sick cloak
#

Once again a specific problem:

I have a custom PCB - close to what the RP2040 propmaker feather is.

I am able to copy the circuitpython over. But when I try to edit the code it says something about not having permission.
How do I avoid that? (Also I only see one COM port in device manager. usually there are 2)

abstract wedge
sick cloak
#

Yes CIRCUITPY

abstract wedge
#

are there any files on it?

sick cloak
abstract wedge
#

you can delete that uf2 file from it

sick cloak
#

no permission to delete eitehr 😄

abstract wedge
#

sounds like your operating system remounted the drive read-only, possibly because of filesystem errors, do you have access to the REPL?

sick cloak
#

I believ so yes

abstract wedge
#

you can re-format the drive by doing import storage; storage.erase_filesystem()

#

after that, the board should restart and your CIRCUITPY drive remount

sick cloak
#

hm unable to write - maybe too fast to enter REPL?

image.png
abstract wedge
#

press enter in that window

sick cloak
#

yes nothing happening

#

second try I got here but not able to write

abstract wedge
#

that sounds like there is something wrong either with the communication with the board or the board itself...

sick cloak
#

hmm will try another one - I tried one before this and that worked without any problems

#

I am using MU for REPL (However it closes REPL when the board restarts and I need like 2-3 sec to open it again) - or is there a better option?

abstract wedge
#

I usually use tio

#

but I'm a terminal kind of person

#

you could also try a different usb port, different cable, with/without usb hub, etc.

dusky shard
#

I use tio also and it is pretty fast to connect. Also the UF2 you had on the circuit python drive. That should have been copied to the UF2 bootloader drive often something like RP2xxx. Do you have a boot button to press while powering on? Of course you can always look at boot_out.txt to see that you're running the version of CP you think you are.

sick cloak
#

I have boot and reset button yes

dusky shard
#

dejhipu's suggestion of reinitializing the disk using the REPL commands is a great first step, if that doesn't work I'd do the boot button on poweron and reload CP. Just make sure you have local copies of any files because the former will definately clear the disk and the latter may also.

sick cloak
#

I already tried boot + reset button.
When I try to install a different version of circuitpython it again shows a permission error.

When I use the same circuitpython version it also shows permission error.
When I remove it from USB and put it in again it seems to have installed circuitpython again and shows the CIRCUITPY drive

#

oh I think I got it

#

or half at least

#

was able to delete the uf2 file now

#

hm but now stuck again

#

very strange just tried another board and there circuitpython 10.1.4 it showed an error. But on 10.0.0 it worked fine

sick cloak
#

okay fixed it now I think.

Other PC, other USB port, other USB cable and sticking to version 10.0.0 for now

abstract wedge
#

it's possible there is some usb-related bug in 10.1.4...

lone cloud
#

what would cause CP to not reload on save? esp32s3-tft feather, 10.1.4. it's been working fine for the last day or two since i started this project, but today it's not reloading. save is fine, pressing reset gets to the new code.

abstract wedge
#

one thing is that you can disable autoreload in boot.py

gray cargo
lone cloud
#

i'm saving via vscode(windows). sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. can't really tell where it is in the code... usually is in a loop where there's a time.sleep(x) involved.

gray cargo
lone cloud
#

no

gray cargo
#

and this is 10.1.4?

lone cloud
#

yes

gray cargo
#

but if it was the same yesterday, I'm not sure I can come up with a reason. vscode is constantly updating (new version every two weeks + intermediate bugfixes). You might try another editor and see if there's any effect.

#

did you install anything else recently, like some drivers or a new utility program?

lone cloud
#

doesn't help my mood when my wifi seems to be uncooperative... starts with 'unknown error 2' when doing radio.connect, then everything i try to connect to has to have retry loop around it. timeouts, bad data in an oauth call, you name it.

#

nothing new that i can remember.

#

not since yesterday afternoon, anyway.

gray cargo
#

but it's on a C6

#

try rebooting your router / access point

lone cloud
#

was reported on a feathers3 as well.

#

i'll try that, and also try downgrading to 10.0.0.3

#

10.0.0.3 didn't help.

gray cargo
#

it could be a somewhat corrupted filesystem. Backup, do storage.erase_filesystem() , and restore the backup

#

don't think that would explain the network problems, though

lone cloud
#

@hot bison is there a link to a .uf2 of the the esp-idf 6 build you mentioned in your stream? i would love to see if it helps with the wifi issues i've been having. (esp32s3 tft feather)

#

this is the full range of errors i'm seeing during a requests.get() on a google calendar api endpoint:

Error occurred while fetching calendar events, retrying:  [Errno 116] ETIMEDOUT
Error occurred while fetching calendar events, retrying:  -29312
Error occurred while fetching calendar events, retrying:  Out of sockets```
often takes anywhere from 10-30 repeats 1 second apart to get a successful result. sometimes makes it the first try. 
lots of similar things getting time from NTP and getting tokens from oauth2, as well as various problems with `wifi.radio.connect()`.
hot bison
lone cloud
#

tyvm

hot bison
lone cloud
#

will do!

hot bison
#

I only tested the wifi on the c6 briefly today

lone cloud
#

speaking of wifi... any idea what a ConnectionError with Unknown failure 2 or Unknown failure 4 means?

hot bison
#

you'd need to dig into the error source and figure out what enum it comes from

lone cloud
#

k

real gazelle
river shore
#

Hello, was hoping to find some information about ulab.utils.spectrogram in CP 10.0.0.3

I have code that is based off of: https://learn.adafruit.com/mini-led-matrix-audio-visualizer/code-the-audio-spectrum-light-show
( among a bunch of other code. )

My code sometimes crashes with an out of memory error while calling spectrogram complaining that it can't allocate 1k. I have gc.collect running every 20seconds or so, and print out the mem_free before and after. I have never seen the free value before running collect lower than 2kb, and usually it goes to 20kb afterwards.

I am calling spectrogram roughly 10 times a second. My assumption is that it is fragmentation that is causing the issue. I would like to pre-allocate the buffer for spectrogram.

Looks like ulab for micropython has a commit from 2024 that allows for a scratchpad:
https://github.com/v923z/micropython-ulab/commit/c0b3262be49de3162c9c0a7082bcd2d52907012e

I found a github repo for circuitpython ulab: https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython-ulab but that seems to be 6 years out of date. I see issues mentioning ulab in the main circuitpython repo, but no spectrogram method. Looks like the version might be 6.5.3-2D from ulab.version?

Questions:

  • Where can I look to see how ulab is included in CP?
  • Is there a way I can backport the newest ulab as a separate module? Or would that be really difficult?
  • Is there another way I should approach this memory issue?
shrewd meadow
# river shore Hello, was hoping to find some information about ulab.utils.spectrogram in CP 10...

ulab is connected to the circuitpython repo as a submodule inside of extmod/ https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/tree/main/extmod It looks like it is pointing to micropython-ulab, but is pinned to a commit older than that pre-allocation feature perhaps.

I think the new version should not be included as a separate module, but instead the existing submodule should get updated. I'm not entirely sure how the rest of the ulab/circuitpython integration works though. I do not know if/how much else there would be to do beyond updating the submodule to a newer commit and fixing any build errors and making sure the new stuff works as expected.

river shore
#

Ah-ha! Thanks for the link @shrewd meadow Yep, that explains what is linked. Agree that updating the extmod is the right path overall. Maybe I will see if I can set up a build environment.

Another question, is there a way to get circuit python boards into uf2 programming mode without pushing the physical button? Through a supervisor call or something? ( The code is running on assembled pieces, and it will be hard to push the reset button

shrewd meadow
river shore
#

Perfect. Thank you!

shrewd meadow
#

yep you're welcome

solar orchid
#

Yes! I use this all the time as a one-liner to copy-n-paste to let me update remote CircutPython boards
import microcontroller; microcontroller.on_next_reset(microcontroller.RunMode.UF2); microcontroller.reset()

crimson mountain
#

regarding the OV5640 and RP2350 feather: is there a specific GPIO that is required to output a stable clock for the XCLK input, or can it be any free GPIO? it seems like on the MEMENTO there's nothing special about the GPIO chosen but I can't find any information on what is required for this external clock

abstract wedge
# 
import microcontroller as m; m.on_next_reset(m.RunMode.UF2); m.reset()

you can shorten it somewhat ;-)

abstract wedge
#

I think on the rp2350 all pins do

crimson mountain
#

gotcha, that goes for the xclk and the pixel clock i'm assuming?

abstract wedge
#

I think the pixel clock is trickier, but I don't really remember. AFAIK the camera on the rp boards is implemented using pio, so the pins need to be consecutive? But I may be wrong, it's been a while since I used it.

#

you don't need xclk if the camera module has an oscillator on board, by the way

crimson mountain
#

my plan was to break out the HSTX pins on the feather and use GPIO12-19 as the 8 consecutive data pins, so that (i hope) shouldn't be an issue but I have like zero experience with this HSTX bus

crimson mountain
abstract wedge
#

I don't think it needs to be stable, it's just a clock for the internal processor, it doesn't need to run smooth

#

io is buffered anyways

#

looking at my own camera shield for the pi pico, the pixel clock doesn't need to be consecutive with the data pins

crimson mountain
abstract wedge
#

this is the connections I used, and it works

Screenshot_2026-04-08_01-20-54.png
#

but that was on the rp2040, with no hstx

crimson mountain
#

ok thanks! here's what i have in mind (tft is one of the 240x240 lcds with the microSD ports on the back), let me know if anything jumps out as being wrong

image.png
abstract wedge
#

you need pullups on the scl and sda

#

unless it's a module and it already has them

crimson mountain
#

it is yes, it's internal to the feather

abstract wedge
#

I would use larger resistor values for the battery voltage monitor

#

you get less precision, but less discharge of the battery

#

100k perhaps

crimson mountain
#

ooo okay that's good to know too

#

i'll probably be hooking up a GPIO expander for buttons as well (did not realize how much the screen and camera would suck up) but that would just chain off of the i2c

abstract wedge
#

well, if you don't need the sd card, you can skip the miso pin for display, and you can have pull-down resistors on camera's reset and pwdn pins instead of gpio

#

and you can skip the backlight control if you don't need it

#

you can also use a shift register for buttons, the keypad module has support for it built in

#

it's cheaper and faster than expander

crimson mountain
#

actually removing reset, pwdn, and backlight should give me 6 free GPIO (counting the 3 ADC channels i'm not using) so I might be all set there!

dusky shard
#

Is there a reason that CP 10.1.4's WiFi connection can still send every 10 minute updates to Adafruit IO but becomes unresponsive to Web Workflow without a physical visit to the board to press reset? Board is a UM TinyS2 but it has also happened on various Adafruit ESP32-Sx boards. And the current code is not set to sleep or disconnect WiFi.

hot bison
#

This sounds an issue that we have open

dusky shard
#

So I logged an issue with BLE Workflow #10785 and see another for unreachable after watchdog reset #10054. I'm using WiFi not BLE in this case and I don't think (but can't guarantee) that a watchdog reset occurred -- the code does have a watchdog in it. I'm not sure how to best troubleshoot since it is happening remotely with no system connected via USB. Also issue #9128 talks about user WiFi connect vs AutoConnect. This board starts out with AutoConnect but my code will detect a disconnect and do it's own connection so #9128 might be in play here.

P.S. I'm already sending to an AIO feed a log of the system start. I'm going to add the reset reason so hopefully I'll find out if it is due to watchdog or not. I'll log info against one of the open issues if I can document it still happening. Otherwise, I'm not sure what else to look for.

Added a comment to Watchdog Reset issue with details of testing. 10054 Comment

bitter valley
#

Good Afternoon Everyone
I hope you all doing alright. I started a personal project, on which i am using the rp2350a4 with the 12MHz Abracon Oscillator and the W25Q128JV Flash. I designed this schematic after the hardware design guide provided by raspberry pi. Yesterday i started programming with installing by flashing the newest versing of circuitpython to the drive (from the boards i choose the standard raspberry pi pico 2), which worked. After that i tried editing the code.py file using vs code and the circuitPythonSync extension, which worked at first but after about 2 min or 2-3 saves and uploads of the code.py file, i got an error message, that the circuitpython drive is mounted read-only. I tried to reconnecting the board by unplugging and plugging in again, but i wasn't able to do anything on the drive. Im using windows 11 on my computer. I tried flashing different versions of circuitpython but i experience the same behavior every single time. I'm a bit suprised, becaused i used the rp2040 on a similar project about a year ago and never had any problems. I also tried some other things mentioned in other forums but nothing worked. Does anyone experience a similar behavior or is there a solution out there that i missed? Thanks for all your help in advance.

image.png image.png
sick cairn
bitter valley
#

i don't have a boot.py file in my circuitpython drive, and i am using the latest stable release (v10.1.4). I never got into safe mode, should i try entering safemode manually?

abstract wedge
#

the operating system may decide to remount a filesystem in read-only mode if it thinks it's corrupted

twilit badge
#

Hi everyone! I have just finsihed soldering together a custom RP2350 project. It boots ok and I'd like to use Cicuit Python, but when I went to the website, I realized I don't know which uF2 to download because this is not a Circuit Python board, but something custom. Should I just pick any file or try to find the most similar one with respect to GPIOs and such?

sick cairn
#

Are you going to share schematics and tell us what interesting things you’re doing?

twilit badge
#

Oh sure! I can do that!

#

How do I make my own board definition?

sick cairn
#

In the circuitpython project, look under ports/raspberrypi/boards

#

Rp2350 is one of the faster builds, but it’s still easier in Linux

twilit badge
#

I am actually planning on making a video talking about this board. But it's a model rocket flight computer I tried to use AI to design. It went horribly - so AI is not really ready for even simple 4 layer boards haha. It ended up taking me way more time than if I just did it myself in KiCAD.

warm umbra
#

Added a 'mouse wiggler' to my LED glasses project. Keeps the laptop from shutting down while my long processing runs are active.

chrome turret
#

I'm doing the button tutorial on the Pico 2, and for some reason, once I press the button, it doesn't switch back to false when I let go. Cant seem to google the problem. Anyone know why that's happening?

chrome turret
#

Solved it with a resistor. Not sure why the tutorial doesnt mention that.

sick cairn
#

Maybe they use a pull-up?
The internal pull-ups on RP2350 are known to be weak

chrome turret
#

I tried the tutorial in up instead of down and it worked fine. For some reason all the tutorials I've seen default to down, and dont show a resistor being used. When I search it everyone seems to be saying the pico doesnt need one.

#

Not sure why mine seems to be different

solar orchid
abstract wedge
chrome turret
#

would that not only be present on the original pico? ive got the pico 2

#

oh wait i see. the 2350 is the 2. that might be the case

abstract wedge
#

the suggested workaround is to use an external resistor

chrome turret
#

I bought it from a Canadian distributor that might have had old ones lying around. makes sense. would there be any downside to using the switches in up, and not using a resistor? or would that be unreliable?

#

i only have 2 10ks on hand lol

abstract wedge
#

I believe using pullups and button connecting to gnd is actually the default way most devices do it.

chrome turret
#

sounds good. thanks!

abstract wedge
#

the only downside is that you have to negate the button in code, but if you use a library like keypad, it does it for you

bitter valley
bitter valley
solar orchid
magic meteor
#

Foolish question with a Circuitpython board - the QTPy RP2040. It's been a long while since I've dealt with the USB-mounted CP boards. I'm connecting it to my Linux Mint machine. It worked yesterday, but now it always mounts the filesystem on the host as read-only. I can't get it to remount rw to update code...

gray cargo
magic meteor
#

Thanks.

twilit badge
#

I’m bringing up a custom RP2350 board where I accidentally wired the I²C pins reversed (SCL → GP8, SDA → GP9), so CircuitPython hardware I²C throws “Invalid pins” and only bitbang I²C works. Bitbang can detect devices (0x53, 0x6A) but fails to reliably communicate with sensors (e.g., ADXL375 init fails and the bus sometimes locks), so I’m wondering if this is a CircuitPython limitation or a deeper hardware/signal integrity issue.

@sick cairn mentioned creating my own board definition, but I'm not sure I can just swap the bus definition and then I don't need to bitbang.

Chat GPT says I should use RP2350 SDK and C++ but all the code I have is for Circuit Python.

ancient crown
#

this is where a logic probe helps a ton. if you have one, set it up and see what the actual i2c traffic is when sensor init is failing.

#

if you have a pi pico board (rp2040) lying around, it could be turned into a perfectly good logic probe for i2c

gray cargo
twilit badge
#

Ohhh, I do have a few RP2040s around. Any guides you know of on how to create a logic probe from it @ancient crown ? THis is a cool idea.

#

@gray cargo There are several i2c devices onboard - a BMP384, ADXL375, and LSM6DSOXTR. They are all on the same bus.

3.png
ancient crown
#

it's been...years? since i played with it. but sigrock + pulseview was the general setup

gray cargo
#

use backticks, not apostrophes for code

ancient crown
#

there should be a UF2 you can just dump on a pico RP2040

twilit badge
#

THis is the code I tried running:

import time
import board
from bitbangio import I2C
import adafruit_adxl37x

print('Test starting!')

# Setup BITBANG I2C (your custom pins)
i2c = I2C(scl=board.GP9, sda=board.GP8)


while not i2c.try_lock():
    pass
i2c.unlock()

# Initialize accelerometer
accelerometer = adafruit_adxl37x.ADXL375(i2c)

G_CONVERSION = 9.80665  # Convert m/s² to Gs

# Measured offsets based on stationary readings
X_OFFSET = 1.15
Y_OFFSET = 0.44
Z_OFFSET = 1.81

print("ADXL375 initialized!")

while True:
    try:
        x, y, z = accelerometer.acceleration

        x_g = (x / G_CONVERSION) - X_OFFSET
        y_g = (y / G_CONVERSION) - Y_OFFSET
        z_g = (z / G_CONVERSION) - Z_OFFSET

        print(
            f"Raw: {x:.2f} {y:.2f} {z:.2f} m/s² | "
            f"Calibrated: {x_g:.2f} {y_g:.2f} {z_g:.2f} G"
        )

    except Exception as e:
        print("Read error:", e)

    time.sleep(0.5)
#

Same result with the LSM, the init fails.

gray cargo
#

the schematic doesn't look wrong, but you routed those GPIO lines to the wrong pins on the RP2350?

#

can you cut the traces and wire them up to reverse them?

#

if you have these parts on breakouts, try using bitbangio on a regular RP2350 board to connect to them to vet whether it's a software problem or not

# 
while not i2c.try_lock():
    pass
i2c.unlock()
#

is unneeded

#

you could try varying the frequency and the clock stretch timeout. You can make the timeout much longer. But first see whether it works on a board with no pin-swap problems.

twilit badge
#

I am saying that Circuit Python insists that SCL must be GP9 and SDA must be GP8 - if you try to reverse them in your object definition, it says "File "code.py", line 16, in <module> ValueError: Invalid pins"

#

On my PCB, they are reversed.

gray cargo
#

that is true; it is a lmitation of RP2xxxx hardware

twilit badge
#

Oh, chat GPT says the hardware can do it, but it is a limitation of circuit python. But I've found chat is often wrong

gray cargo
#

but you said i2c = I2C(scl=board.GP9, sda=board.GP8)

#

so is board.GP9 not really GPIO9?

twilit badge
#

On my circuit, SDA = GP9 and SCL = GP8

gray cargo
#

ah ok, I do see now the schematic error

twilit badge
#

Yes, agreed, I read the datasheet backwards and messed this up

viral flume
twilit badge
#

Now I'm trying to fix it in software

gray cargo
#

but then you would do i2c = bitbangio.I2C(scl=board.GP8, sda=board.GP9)

#

because you want to use GP8 as SCL

#

because you accidentally connected GP8 (not GP9) to all the SCL pins

#

if i understand you correclty

twilit badge
#

Oh this is backwards too. Let me try this

#

Yep, still the invalid pins error from:

# 
import board
import busio
import adafruit_adxl37x

print('Test starting!')

# Setup I2C
i2c = busio.I2C(scl=board.GP8, sda=board.GP9)

accelerometer = adafruit_adxl37x.ADXL375(i2c)

G_CONVERSION = 9.80665  # Convert m/s² to Gs

# Measured offsets based on stationary readings
X_OFFSET = 1.15  # Adjust this based on your actual data
Y_OFFSET = 0.44
Z_OFFSET = 1.81  # Since it should be -1 G, subtract 1.81 - (-1) = 0.81

while True:
    x, y, z = accelerometer.acceleration
    x_g = (x / G_CONVERSION) - X_OFFSET
    y_g = (y / G_CONVERSION) - Y_OFFSET
    z_g = (z / G_CONVERSION) - Z_OFFSET

    print(f"Raw: {x:.2f} {y:.2f} {z:.2f} m/s² | Calibrated: {x_g:.2f} {y_g:.2f} {z_g:.2f} G")
    time.sleep(0.5)
    ```
gray cargo
#

no, use bitbangio, not busio

#

busio will not work; it's pointing out the hardware limitation`

#

bitbangio.I2C is a completely different implementation internally than busio.I2C

twilit badge
#

Oh my god

.]0;🐍code.py | 10.1.4.\Test starting!
Raw: 11.05 2.88 8.17 m/s² | Calibrated: -0.02 -0.15 -0.98 G
Raw: 11.05 1.44 1.92 m/s² | Calibrated: -0.02 -0.29 -1.61 G
Raw: 9.13 1.44 5.77 m/s² | Calibrated: -0.22 -0.29 -1.22 G
Raw: 9.61 2.88 2.88 m/s² | Calibrated: -0.17 -0.15 -1.52 G
Raw: 10.09 3.84 5.29 m/s² | Calibrated: -0.12 -0.05 -1.27 G
Raw: 11.05 2.88 3.36 m/s² | Calibrated: -0.02 -0.15 -1.47 G
Raw: 10.09 0.96 7.21 m/s² | Calibrated: -0.12 -0.34 -1.08 G
#

I wish I came here first instead of the depressing 2 hours of talking with Chat GPT yesterday

gray cargo
#

if you must talk to an LLM, use one of the Codex or Claude models, not ChatGPT. but in general, go to a human source first if you can

#

we use models quite successfully to write code, but we know when they're wrong

#

we are the experts leading the interns

ancient crown
#

I wish I came here first instead of the depressing 2 hours of talking with Chat GPT yesterday
^^ need that printed on coffee mugs / tshirts 🙂

twilit badge
#

Seriously! I think it's easy to fall into the trap of Chat GPT knows everything, but really not always. I
looked back through the entire thread to figure out what went wrong and Chat GPT swapped my SDA/SCL lines in the definition even though I gave it to it correctly. However, I did learn about bit banging which I never heard of before so you win some, you lose some!

hot bison
surreal crane
#

what editor/ide do y'all prefer to use for circuitpython 10? i had wanted to use vs code, but the extension only currently supports 9.x

shrewd meadow
# surreal crane what editor/ide do y'all prefer to use for circuitpython 10? i had wanted to us...

I use PyCharm mostly. There is a guide page here https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-circuitpython/pycharm-and-circuitpython that documents the things I setup within it. Though it is perhaps out of date at this point some of the settings screenshots are likely not exactly the same anymore but general concepts still apply. Prof G has a video covering the setup as well and links to more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LoXTVGlNVU

solar orchid
# surreal crane what editor/ide do y'all prefer to use for circuitpython 10? i had wanted to us...

One approach is kinda "a la carte". For e.g., the Zed editor is quite good for Python work and then opening a Zed terminal running tio to get the serial REPL. I believe this is what JP uses for most of his workshops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAs45AOycrg
To get Zed to know CircuitPython classes, install the python packages pip3 install circuitpython-stubs, then you can do circuitpython_setboard raspberry_pi_pico2 or whatever board you have. Maybe install other CircuitPython packages you may use like pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-displayio-ssd1306 for those little OLEDs. Oh I see FoamyGuy points to ProfG's videos and PyCharm. It's about the same idea I've described here but with PyCharm

surreal crane
#

thank you both!

abstract turret
surreal crane
#

Thanks!

crimson mountain
#

currently working on loading a gif from disk and displaying it on this display https://www.adafruit.com/product/6178 on the RP2350 feather w/ the 8MB PSRAM. the gif plays but is particularly slow, i'm using the example that sends the data directly over the display bus rather than with displayio (this example https://docs.circuitpython.org/en/latest/shared-bindings/gifio/index.html). is there anything i can do to speed it up at all, or am i bottlenecked by processor speed/PSRAM speed?

Adafruit 1.28" 240x240 Round TFT LCD Display with MicroSD

'Round these parts we enjoy unusually-shaped displays. And this one certainly fits the description - it's a 1.28" diagonal TFT that comes in a round shape and contains a high ...

#

i haven't tried it with only displayio but i'm assuming it would be even slower that way

compact creek
#

Ok I know least in version 9 of circuit python the ble didn’t work for the esp32 feather boards

compact creek
#

So the blue fruit iOS app connects to the circuitpython serial/repl fine

#

I might have to modify my script to just dump the can data to serial if it isn’t already and connect it to real dash

gray cargo
lone cloud
#

if i've started an access point with wifi.radio.start_ap(...), how do i find out what channel the AP is actually using? I pass it a channel, but it's apparently in use so it picks a different one. i swear it used to work to call wifi.radio.ap_info.channel, but ap_info is none if it's an access point. (gonna have to go back to several old projects and see why they worked 🙂 ) (esp32s3 feather)

lone cloud
#

how/where do i file an issue with a docs page? from time.monotonic_ns(): "Return the time of the monotonic clock, which cannot go backward, in nanoseconds. Not available on boards without long integer support. Only use it to compare against other values from time.monotonic() during a single code run." Should say from time.monotonic_ns()?

gray cargo
lone cloud
#

and... weird numbers coming out of monotonic_ns() :
rpm = 60 * 1e9/ (time.monotonic_ns() - self.lastAnemometerTime)
is giving values 10X what's expected. at what should be 60 rpm, i'm getting time diffs of around 100,000,000 ns... which calculates to 600 rpm

lone cloud
lone cloud
#

i'm running two esp32s3's that talk using espnow. one sets up an access point and the other connects to it. (doing this mostly to avoid issues with the relatively closed network that they'll be running near, or i'd just have them connect to it). the first needs to connect to the external network on startup momentarily to call NTP to get the current time. it then calls wifi.radio.stop_station() and proceeds to set up the access point and turn on espnow. It all looks like it succeeds, but espnow isn't receiving any messages sent by the other side. If I don't connect and get NTP, it all works fine. I'm figuring there must be something else getting in the way. If I'm not mistaken, espnow automatically uses the current wifi.radio connection... is there something more than wifi.radio.stop_station() that I need to do to make sure it can connect? Any other ideas what might be going badly?

gray cargo
#

ESPNOW doesn't care about the local network

lone cloud
#

k.

#

i guess since it's MAC-based it doesn't even care about the IP address.

gray cargo
#

if you skip the NTP step, and remove any wifi setup info from settings.toml, does it work better?

lone cloud
#

if i skip NTP it works. current NTP code is:

        wifi.radio.stop_ap()
        wifi.radio.connect(os.getenv("CIRCUITPY_WIFI_SSID"), os.getenv("CIRCUITPY_WIFI_PASSWORD"))
        socket_pool = adafruit_connection_manager.get_radio_socketpool(wifi.radio)
        ssl_context = adafruit_connection_manager.get_radio_ssl_context(wifi.radio)
        requests = adafruit_requests.Session(socket_pool, ssl_context)

        ntp = adafruit_ntp.NTP(socket_pool, socket_timeout=30)
        dt = ntp.datetime
        rtc.RTC().datetime = dt
        wifi.radio.stop_station()
        wifi.radio.enabled = False```
#

i could just as well do it without the settings.toml part

#

but nothing else uses it except for this

gray cargo
#

if CIRCUITPY_WIFI_SSID and PASSWORD are in settings.toml, then it will autoconnect on hard reset.

lone cloud
#

hrm. ok.

gray cargo
#

if you name them something else, it will not autoconnect

#

you don't need the requests assignment. It's not used

#

not expensive, but not needed

#

you don't need the stop_ap() at the top either

#

just try the .enabled = False

lone cloud
#

i'm assuming that some network has to be set up, access point or otherwise.

gray cargo
lone cloud
#

back to MACs. 🙁

gray cargo
#

ESPNOW does not live on top of TCP or UDP; it's much more low level. No access point, no router

lone cloud
#

right

#

i just tried turning off all wifi connections on both sides... and I get espidf.IDFError: ESP-NOW error 0x306d when trying to send a message

gray cargo
#

.enabled may be shutting down the radio chip or something

lone cloud
#

trying it now.

#

not even calling .enabled at this point

gray cargo
#

do a hard reset or power cycle

lone cloud
lone cloud
gray cargo
#

so maybe you can't shut down the station without losingthe channel

lone cloud
#

hrm.

gray cargo
#

we didn't write the espnow module; it was contributed. I will look at the MicroPython version.

lone cloud
#

thanks

gray cargo
#

so .... I don't know exactly what needs to be up. You don't need to be connected, but wifi.radio needs to be on. maybe wifi.radio.start_station() or .start_ap() is good enough, without connecting.

lone cloud
#

normally it is.

#

it's just if i've turned it on and off and on again that it won't receive.

gray cargo
#

so i'm sorry I led you astray. we don't have a wifi.radio.disconnect() API. The wifi.radio API was developed only with wifi in mind, not considering ESPNOW

lone cloud
#

🙂

lone cloud
#

now i just have to worry about getting permission for it to talk to NTP... it's a home-brew weather station for my wife's environmental science course... so i have to deal with the school district's network 🙂

gray cargo
#

if you just do start_station, and never do anything else, is that good enough?

#

without scanning for wifi networks

#

or trying to connect

lone cloud
#

i don't scan, i know the AP name in advance. if i call wifi.radio.connect() to get to ntp, then call wifi.radio.start_ap, it works. just don't do anything to turn the first one off in between.

gray cargo
#

that sounds fine. Suppose you just call start_station, without connecting?

lone cloud
gray cargo
#

start_station happens implicitly when you connect. But suppose you were not trying to connect to NTP. is start_station() good enough to get espnow to run?

#

why are you doing start_ap()? Is it to specify the channel?

lone cloud
#

i need a network to connect to if i want to use web workflow to update code on the remote end... the base station i can plug into, the actual weather station i can't

#

hopefully it will never come to that, but we all know how likely THAT is.

#

@gray cargo how good is automatic garbage collection? say i need to read a series of json files off of the sd card, retaining just a couple of values from each. should i be manually GCing in between file reads? or is it going to happen by itself OK?

#

also thinking about just breaking the files up more, but it's making my head hurt. 🙂

gray cargo
# lone cloud <@329766224093249548> how good is automatic garbage collection? say i need to re...

it will happen automatically. The main reason to do it yourself is to prevent fragmentation. If for instance a large buffer is allocated, and then is not freed before the next large buffer is allocated, then both buffers have to exist briefly:

while True:
    buf = make_a_big_buf()
    # do something else

The old buffer will be garbage, but only after the assignment. On the other hand if you do this:

while True:
    buf = make_a_big_buf
    # ...
    buf = None
    gc.collect()

Then the old buf will definitely get freed and returned to free storage before it's created a second time.

#

We do have a number of API's that take an existing buf so you can reuse the buf immediately. But that's not always available.

lone cloud
#

and will probably be more responsive overall than hitting one big GC all at once.

dense olive
#

I may have missed it above, but channel is critical for ESP-Now... if you use wifi to connect to an AP, then the channel will be set to the AP channel, and it may not match ESP-Now

gray cargo
#

that is true, but there is also less garbage to scan if you do gc frequently

gray cargo
lone cloud
#

you can set channel for an AP

dense olive
#

there are ways to work around the channel and change it for ESP-Now

lone cloud
#

or at least request one

gray cargo
#

if either of your can think of API improvements or doc improvements, they are welcome

dense olive
gray cargo
#

i forgot about that issue!

dense olive
#

it's been 3 years, my recollection could be faulty, but I thought if you set channel with AP or Monitor, then ESP-Now would use that channel ≠ 1, but I'm not positive

lone cloud
#

interesting... i've been using channel 2 until a few minutes about when I saw I can set it to 0...

#

i.e., setting peer.channel to 2 (matching what I request for the AP)

dense olive
#

(of course, all ESP-Now nodes need to use the same channel)

#

but I don't think it works to directly change channel in ESP-Now API

#

found my last example code... looks like I couldn't get channel changing to work by using station or monitor (or ESP-Now API), so creating an AP with a channel≠1 was the only way I knew of... once that's done, you can wifi.radio.stop_ap() but the new channel should stick then for ESP-Now (at least I think that's what used to happen)

#

it may have been a lucky fluke that the channel wasn't cleared when AP was stopped

lone cloud
#

i tell ya, AI gets a little unnerving at times. I'm not using it directly, like via claude or whatever, but the AI autocomplete in VSCode freaks me out when it completes what i was thinking before I even start typing it.

dense olive
#

(I don't know what effect, if any, wifi.radio.enabled = False will have if done between the AP channel-setting and the start of ESP-Now). But wifi.radio.stop_ap() was OK. _...edit: _ wifi.radio.enabled = False will revert the channel to 1.

lone cloud
#

@danh did anything ever come out of the need to keep the terminal from grabbing a display automatically? you'd mentioned wanting to put a flag in settings.toml or something like that.

gray cargo
lone cloud
#

yw 🙂 i thought there was one for the terminal stuff. as i'm working on something with a display, it's started bugging me again. 🙂

gray cargo
#

also want to do "no USB SD card", no BLE wait, safe mode delay length

split laurel
#

I've been using Adafruit CircuitPython boards for a while I recently bought 3 QT py s2 boards (Esp32s2) purchased through a local distributor I'm in Australia. On first connecting the boards none of them showed up on my Linux mint computer. After slow double clicking to get into I downloaded the newest UF2 for the boards after copping the file to the boot drive the drive disappears but instead of rebooting into into the CIRCUITPY Drive it reloaded as QTPYS2BOOT. so unable to program it in circuit python at the moment is there something I need to do to to enable me to boot into CIRCUITPY Drive then. Looking through the learn guide I tried to use the factory reset UF2 leaving the drive undetected by Linux

split laurel
#

After getting back into QTPYS2BOOT drive the info_uf2.txt file has the Tiny Bootloader 0.10.2 something I read on the lean pages said something about needing bootloader ver. 33 is this easy to do? I recoppied the newest stable version of the Uf2 to the Boot drive but still no luck any help appreciated thanks

gray cargo
#

CircuitPython 10.2.0-rc.0 is released! Please try it so we can release 10.2.0 final.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/04/16/circuitpython-10-2-0-rc0-released/
Highlights:

  • New audiotools.SpeedChanger.
  • New qspibus support for displayio.
  • Stability improvements to USB SD card handling.
  • Merge of MicroPython v1.27.
  • Update to ESP-IDF v5.5.3.
  • Many additions to the Zephyr port.
  • Simulated hardware testing is now being done in the Zephyr port.
lone cloud
gray cargo
#

It can take a number of seconds (>10 or 15 sometimes) to mount, depending on the size of the card and the number of files visible at the top level. It's slow for the host to read the card to get enough info to mount it.

lone cloud
#

it's not coming up at all (after minutes or hours even)

#

will check out the RC

lone cloud
#

esp32s3 n4r2 feather, 3.5" cap touch TFT wing with 32gb SD card.

gray cargo
#

is the card definitely being mounted in your program?

lone cloud
#

code is standard:

    sdcard = adafruit_sdcard.SDCard(board.SPI(), scs)
    vfs = storage.VfsFat(sdcard)
    storage.mount(vfs, "/sd")

no exceptions thrown, i do get an expected oserror 2 when trying to open a non-existent file. will try to get a file list, 1 sec

#

ya, file list is []

gray cargo
#

what is the host OS?

lone cloud
#

which is right

#

win 11

#

latest, it updated a day or two ago

gray cargo
#

the program is running while you're waiting, right?

#

you're not at >>> prompt

lone cloud
#

yes, it's in an asyncio loop

gray cargo
#

try a really simple mounting program without asyncio. Just mount it, do os.listdir() to check it's ok, then and put in a while True: time.sleep(1)

lone cloud
#

k

gray cargo
#

if that doesn't work, try a totally different computer, not windows, if you have one

lone cloud
#

nothing on this computer, or on win11 laptop. no non-windows, unfortunately.

compact creek
#

So I can see my esp32 with blue fruit app but it doesn’t show up as a can logger with other software. I’ll have to look into how to make a gatt profile to simulate what those look for.

#

Does the esp32 now support ble workflow in 10.0?

gray cargo
summer kite
#

tried 10.2.0-rc.0 on a Matrix Portal S3 running a pretty active display program (lots of MQTT traffic and visual updates)... initially thrown by the os.getenv() changes (code was reading the broker's port number from settings.toml) but once I fixed that the code's been running well and ran overnight without any issues, so it's working well for me 🙂

gray cargo
#

were you expecting os.getenv() to return an int?

#

(which was a bug, basically).

#

supervisor.get_setting() will now return the int. os.getenv() will always return a string.

#

I think I checked all the Guide code for possible repercussions, but of course not user code.

summer kite
compact creek
#

So I upgraded my board to 10.1 without backing up my script….

#

I used Claude to knock together a pretty good replacement

#

But it seems to have created an issue where the ble service tries to start advertising again when a device connects

#

So should I call stop advertising when a connection hits

gray cargo
deep minnow
#

Hello,

I am having some issues with a rather unique setup. I have a Seeed Studio XIAO nrf52840 running CircuitPython 10.1.4, hooked up to a esp32 devkit 1 running NINA-fw 3.3.0 via SPI
I am able to run a simple test example from the adafruit_esp32spi repository with no issues.
However I have tried to use adafruit_esp32spi ESP_SPIcontrol create_AP and I keep getting an unknown error 0xfe
Searches on Google tell me that it's possibly a power related issue however I have tried both USB power and an external power supply with the same result.
I am unable to find any example of any usage of create_AP on the internet.

My goal is to use the esp32 as a access point to serve a webpage to control data on my nrf52840 as I was having little to no luck with BLE on either device.

My current pinout:
nrf52840 5V => esp32 VIN
nrf52840 GND => esp32 GND
nrf52840 SCK (D8) => esp32 (D18)
nrf52840 MISO (D9) => esp32 (D23)
nrf52840 MOSI (D10) => esp32 (D14)
nrf52840 CS (D2) => esp32 (D5)
nrf52840 BUSY (D3) => esp32 (D33)
nrf52840 RESET (D4) => esp32 (EN)

My current script:

from os import getenv

import adafruit_connection_manager
import adafruit_requests
import board
import busio
from digitalio import DigitalInOut
from adafruit_esp32spi import adafruit_esp32spi

ssid = getenv("CIRCUITPY_WIFI_SSID")
password = getenv("CIRCUITPY_WIFI_PASSWORD")

spi = board.SPI()
esp32_cs = DigitalInOut(board.D2)
esp32_ready = DigitalInOut(board.D3)
esp32_reset = DigitalInOut(board.D4)

esp = adafruit_esp32spi.ESP_SPIcontrol(spi, esp32_cs, esp32_ready, esp32_reset)

pool = adafruit_connection_manager.get_radio_socketpool(esp)
ssl_context = adafruit_connection_manager.get_radio_ssl_context(esp)
requests = adafruit_requests.Session(pool, ssl_context)

if esp.status == adafruit_esp32spi.WL_IDLE_STATUS:
    print("ESP32 found and in idle mode")
print("Firmware vers.", esp.firmware_version)
print("MAC addr:", ":".join("%02X" % byte for byte in esp.MAC_address))

while not esp.is_connected:
    try:
        # esp.connect_AP(ssid, password)
        esp.create_AP(ssid, password)
    except OSError as e:
        print("could not create AP, retrying: ", e)
        continue
gray cargo
empty fjord
#

Hi Everyone, quick question.

When I have a settings.toml that has wifi and pasword for the web editor configured the code.py does not execute automatically when restarting the device only when I edit and save it.

Is this intended behaviour?

dusky shard
#

What version of CP are you running?

empty fjord
#

Latest from the main branch. CircuitPython 10.2.0-rc.0-3

dusky shard
#

So I'm not an official CP developer but I've filed a bug that exhibits that exact behavior as issue <url=https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/issues/10957#issue-4289467265"> #10957</url>. I might suggest going back to 10.1.4 unless you want to help debug 🙂

GitHub
microcontroller.reset() causes board to hang indefinitely on subseq...

CircuitPython version and board name Adafruit CircuitPython 10.2.0-rc.0 on 2026-04-16; Adafruit Feather ESP32-S2 TFT with ESP32S2 Adafruit CircuitPython 10.2.0-rc.0 on 2026-04-16; TinyS2 with ESP32...

empty fjord
#

Can't go back as I have just built my own firmware as my board was missing.

dusky shard
#

I find when I get the board into the wedged condition by a microcontroller.reset() I can only cause execution by changing code.py. Otherwise booting stops after boot.py.

empty fjord
#

Have to test the microcontroller.reset() part.
I got it working as expected when I removed the settinggs.toml

dusky shard
#

Do you have storage.disable_usb_drive in boot.py? That is what got me into the wedged state. Also I found as you did that settings.toml with WiFi and Web Workflow enabled was a requirement. I think I recall you can have WiFi enabled but leave off the Web Workflow password and not trigger the issue I found. Your path into the no auto execution of code.py may be a dfferent one and if you figure it out either log a new bug or add to #10957 as you feel appropriate.

empty fjord
#

I didn't even had a boot.py
But I had wifi-settings and the web-ui port and password set.
Will try if I can replicate it consistently.

dusky shard
#

Interesting. I'll have to go back and retry my bug workflow steps.

empty fjord
#

I tested by having boot.py with print("boot") and code.py with a print loop and sleep 1.
copied my settings.toml and restarted. It hanged at boot.py

Removing the settings file got it working.

dusky shard
#

Interesting. Different set of circumstances for me to get it to hang at (I think after) boot.py for me -- my print statements in boot.py showed on my TFT display -- but same issue of not running code.py. I double checked my workflow and without boot.py I don't have a problem triggering the issue.

dusky shard
#

So perhaps we're seeing similar stuff (except for boot.py being involved for me). To trigger the bug I found required all three of boot.py disable_usb_drive, WiFi credentials and Web Password in settings.toml. I did verify that either removing the boot.py or settings.toml resolved the bug and allowed code.py to run.

empty fjord
#

Hi Everyone, does anyone know if there is a CircuitPython library for image comparison?
I am trying to compare to captured images (OV camera) that are in a memoryview.

I am looking for something like OpenCVs SSMI where I can compare two images and calculate the meaningfull difference percentage and only send the images when they are different enough.

deep minnow
proven nimbus
#

Hi everyone! Im in search of an RP2350 board that has a USB C connector, and I found the DFRobot Beetle RP2350 board.

Unfortunately, it's not on the official list of supported boards here: https://circuitpython.org/downloads

But it's just using the RP2350, so would there be any problems if I took the Pi Pico 2 Firmware and flashed it onto the Beetle? Is there any way for me to check without actually buying the board and trying it out?

CircuitPython - Downloads

CircuitPython supported boards.

abstract wedge
gray cargo
#

we have specific builds for some of them, but they vary little from the Pico 2 builds

proven nimbus
#

Out of curiosity, why the different builds if it's the same chip, just packaged in a different form factor?

gray cargo
#

many boards don't break out all the pins, and the pins they do choose to break out are different. unavailable pins are omitted on those builds

#

third-party board builds are often created by community members

proven nimbus
#

Ahh alright then, makes sense.

Thanks a lot - I'll have a look at the boards on the adafruit storefront and see which one fits my form factor.

Thanks a bunch!

lone cloud
#

anyone know if there's an easy way to grab glyphs (either one at a time, or passing a desired string) out of a bitmapfont? i'm using a Graph class originally descended from the one in the https://learn.adafruit.com/ez-make-oven project - it draws itself into a bitmap which goes into a tilegrid. I'm wanting to draw axis labels directly in the bitmap, instead of trying to keep displayio labels aligned in the right positions.

EZ Make Oven

Make your own reflow oven with this easy to build project

shrewd meadow
# lone cloud anyone know if there's an easy way to grab glyphs (either one at a time, or pass...

The Font class has a get_glyph() function that takes an int for a codepoint of a character. It returns Glyph object that has the source bitmap and geometry values that can be used to extract the portion of the bitmap that represents that glyph. It doesn't return just the single glyph bitmap though, you have to cut out the section that represents the glyph you're interested in "manually" bitmaptools.blit() could help with that.

>>> terminalio.FONT.get_glyph(ord("a"))
Glyph(bitmap=<Bitmap>, tile_index=65, width=6, height=12, dx=0, dy=0, shift_x=6, shift_y=0)
lone cloud
cosmic swift
#

Random post. I am not a programmer. Today I learned I can reset a counter automatically using the % operator. Yeah not exciting to most of you, but being able to replace

count += 1
[do stuff]
if count > 150:
    count = 0

with count = (count + 1) % 151 I thought was pretty cool.

sick cairn
compact creek
#

Should a program use a try catch for keyboard interrupt to do de init and delete?

#

@gray cargo it did look similar to that. It is using a esp32 huzzah v2. 8mb flash 2mb psram. It works if I have the toml set up to be ble device and add additional services and notify when I want to publish something to those services

#

If I remove the ble config in the toml, and use code similar to the example it sits and spins when things try to connect.

gray cargo
empty fjord
#

Hi everyone, I have a question regarding espcamera.

I have a couple of boards that run on ESP32-S3 N16R8 and have a camera port. I was searching through the circuitpython sdkconfigs and not one single board definition has the OV3660 or OV5640 enabled. Is there a way to enable these without to recompile the firmware?

gray cargo
empty fjord
gray cargo
#

it is on by default in mpconfigport.mk

empty fjord
#

Thanks, in that case I will try the esp32s3_devkitc_1_n16 as that should have everything except the pre-defined pin mappings MP_ROM_QSTR.

gray cargo
#

that n16 has no PSRAM specified, though it might be autodetected, depending on the settings.

empty fjord
#

Ah it is missing the psram

gray cargo
#

if you go to espressif/boards, this line will find all the 16/8 boards:

grep 'PSRAM_SIZE = 8MB' -l */mpconfigboard.mk |xargs grep 'FLASH_SIZE = 16MB'
#

for instance the metro s3 is 16/8, but it doesn't have all the pins

#

Espressif does not actuall make a devkit board that is 16/8

empty fjord
#

Yeah, I assume the ones I got a cheap knockoffs ... I already orderes some real bran ones.

#

the yd_esp32_s3_n16r8 seems to have the exact same pin config - Minus the camera pins and I can map the manually in the python.
Will test with this board. If that works I don't need the pull request.

empty fjord
#

The yd_esp32_s3_n16r8 works perfectly with custom pin-mapping in code. Thanks again!

empty fjord
#

I was using the really good beginners guides and tutorials at https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-circuitpython/exploring-your-first-circuitpython-program to learn about circuitpython and I think what made me tumble was a simple silly missing information - that is now clear as daylight to me in hindsight.

The board.LED or board.NEOPIXEL are just alias names.
If the firmware you used for your board does not have that alias this is no big deal as you can always use the pins directly. They are either called board.IO{number} or board.GPIO{number} depending on the firmware.

Is there a way to propose a change to that tutorial?

It would be nice to mention that in the "Exploring your first program" section.

gray cargo
empty fjord
#

Done

dusky shard
#

@empty fjord Nice job figuring out the 'unknown manufacturer' pinouts for the camera board. Somewhere in these threads I think you said you found an official version. I'm not finding one easily, could you post a url I'd like to compare it with the one you currently have.

bleak pagoda
#

I am trying to add the M5Stack StickS3 to CircuitPython, but I am confused what to put in board.c. What do I need to put in the board files?

gray cargo
#

normally you don't need to add anything to board.c unless you need to initialize a display or do something with a pin on startup or pin reset

bleak pagoda
gray cargo
#

find another board with the same display, if you can

bleak pagoda
#

The StickC PLUS2 has a ST7789v2

gray cargo
#

i don't know what the difference is. It will involve studying datasheets. You could try the previous one. You may need to move pins around if they have changed.

#

the initialization sequence may be slightly different, the row or column offsets may be different, etc. if you can find some code they wrote for the StickS3, that may be helpful

bleak pagoda
gray cargo
#

CircuitPython 10.2.0 is released!
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/04/22/circuitpython-10-2-0-released/
Highlights:

  • New audiotools.SpeedChanger.
  • New qspibus support for displayio.
  • Stability improvements to USB SD card handling.
  • Merge of MicroPython v1.27.
  • Update to ESP-IDF v5.5.3.
  • Many additions to the Zephyr port.
  • Simulated hardware testing is now being done in the Zephyr port.
gray cargo
warped flicker
#

is the circuitpython filesystem fat32?

#

i just reinstalled linux on my PC, and the drive isn't showing up
i prob forgot to install fat32 file support

#

installing dosfstools and a reboot fixed it

gray cargo
empty fjord
# dusky shard <@456882986676125706> Nice job figuring out the 'unknown manufacturer' pinouts f...

You can look at the pull request I opened and closed after I figured out which existing board was working for the boards I have.
https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/pull/10959#issuecomment-4298959352

  • There is a picture of my boards
  • The existing board firmware "yd_esp32_s3_n16r8" I ended up using
  • and the pin-mapping I use in code.py to get the camera working.
GitHub
Added board ESP32-S3 N16R8 Wroom with espcamera by themipper · Pul...

I followed the official guide and created a fork.
Built circuitpython and my board defintion.
Flashed the board with the new firmware.
Used the pre-commit automatic checks.
Added code.py and deepsl...

compact creek
#

So how might I make a script to target the esp32 wroom on the huzzah or the one on the racecapture board

#

Circuitpython doesn’t have #defines would I need to look at os parameters?

dusky shard
carmine spire
#

Can anyone point me toward an ADC button resistor ladder example? I swear I've stumbled across an existing library before, but of course now that I need it I can't seem to find it again.

I'm working with a common 5 button module on a single analog pin, and would rather not reinvent the wheel if possible.

gray cargo
carmine spire
gray cargo
#

not the top thing, but on the first page, and it was todbot, so seemed likely!

#

I decided to pay for kagi and am liking it

#

results look similar to google or bing without all the advertising cruft

carmine spire
solar orchid
# compact creek So how might I make a script to target the esp32 wroom on the huzzah or the one ...

Do you mean being able to select different setup code for different boards in your code.py? If so, there' s a couple of different approaches. You can test board.board_id to get the official board name:

if 'rasperry_pi_pico' == board.board_id: 
  # do pico setup
elif 'adafruit_qtpy_esp32s3_nopsram' == board.board_id:
  # do qtpy esp32s3 setup

You can also test os.uname().sysname to get chip you're on (e.g. "ESP32" vs "RP2040", etc). And you can also get the human-readable name from os.uname().machine. I have a few more examples here: https://github.com/todbot/circuitpython-tricks#determine-which-board-youre-on

sick cairn
#

How many buttons can you reasonably connect with the resistor ladder? Five seems reasonable, but I expect 7 would be too much to ask from 1% resistors

empty fjord
# dusky shard I saw that post but earlier in this channel you had said, "Yeah, I assume the on...

I bought some Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3 Sense (~10-13€) and they work like a charm. With the nonames I had a lot of problems with wifi stability for example and overheating. None of that happenes with the SEED so far and I have one of them running for 30+ hours now. And you can tell the difference just by looking at build quiality.

I also got some other cheap ones (ordered them vefore I knew what I wanted) those seem to be the exact yd_esp32-s3_n16r8 with an IPEX antenna port. They also seem to work well (although they don't have a dedicated camera flat cable port)

dusky shard
# empty fjord I bought some Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3 Sense (~10-13€) and they work like a cha...

Thank you, I see the Seeed Studio XIAO Sense has the advantage of being more compact if you don't need additonal pins. And the dedicated camera flat cable port seems nice -- not that I avoid soldering always but I'm happy to skip it when I can. Just good to know what works well or not.

It's funny how often I get a new project by seeing a post, like yours. I didn't have an ESP32 camera yet and now I want one. 😀

empty fjord
empty fjord
flint cloud
#

Hello. Just recieved my Feather NRF52840 Express. When I download the Project Bundle, The CircuitPython folders only have code.py in them. There are no lib folder or files. Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong or are the libs somewhere else?

abstract wedge
flint cloud
flint cloud
abstract wedge
#

yeah, that code doesn't use external libraries

flint cloud
#

Ok, thanks. I thought that would include all the libraries.

abstract wedge
sick cairn
flint cloud
gray cargo
viral flume
#

It helps big time to keep them updated.

#

(Great when you have a couple different devices for different reasons.)

dusky shard
#

Yeah, I was doing manually for the first month or two and then converted to circup. Besides the main
circup install -a
I frequently employ:
circup update --all
to make sure I have the latest. Took me months to realize I could even update a remote device OTA using web workflow:
circup install -a --host a.b.c.d --password mypass

gray cargo
ruby notch
#

So, few things
Looking to start a project with a raspi I have laying around with a PN532 NFC controller
It seems like my best bet for connecting over i2c is the adafruit pn532 circuitpython library

  1. To my understanding, circuitpython code will all run fine under normal python given a compatibility layer is installed?
  2. Many of the methods in the docs all reference mifare cards over generic NFC. Do those methods only work with mifare cards? (read_passive_target for example)
  3. I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't, but I assume the library will work with any PN532 board, not just the official adafruit board? I assume it will, considering it's the same chip, but figured I'd rather be safe than sorry
  4. Not directly circuitpython related, this'll be my first "hardware" project, though it should only need the pi and nfc controller, and maybe an LED or two if I'm feeling fancy. What are some common pitfalls or mistakes I should look out for?
solar orchid
# ruby notch So, few things Looking to start a project with a raspi I have laying around with...

If the host you're running normal Python on has I2C (like a Raspberry Pi) or you have a supported USB-to-I2C converter, then yes, you can use Blinka (the CircuitPython compatibility layer) to run a CircuitPython program that uses adafruit_pn532. The read_passive_target() method is just sending an I2C command to the PN532 controller, so if you can talk to it at all, that method will work. As for supporting other PN532 boards, some others support SPI or UART, which all are supported by the library, but it's something you should watch out for.

gray yoke
#

Hello! I am trying to get circuit-python up on the ESP32-C6-DevKitC-1-N8. I was able to flash 10.2 & get REPL working with mpremote. I then followed the web workflow in https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-with-esp32-quick-start/setting-up-web-workflow and it seems to be crashing a bunch. I came across https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/issues/10892 and it matches my symptoms. Can I install 10.0.3 and get it to work? I am not sure where to find that. Or... maybe there is a different way to cp my code.py file to the device?

CircuitPython on ESP32 Quick Start

Install and Code CircuitPython on ESP32 boards

GitHub
WiFi slow/crashy with CircuitPython >= 10.1 on Feather ESP32-C6 · ...

CircuitPython version and board name Adafruit CircuitPython 10.1.4 on 2026-03-09; Adafruit Feather ESP32-C6 4MB Flash No PSRAM with ESP32C6 Code/REPL # No code changes Behavior Not a code issue Des...

gray cargo
ruby notch
dusky shard
gray yoke
carmine spire
#

I've been trying to abandon VSCode and switch to KDE's Kate as my primary IDE, but one of the features I miss most is the wmerkens CircuitPython v2 plugin, which was an absolute joy to use.

Kate has decent Language Server Protocol support, but I'm unsure how to provide its Python LSP with the appropriate CircuitPython references to enable similar "intellisense" abilities.

Can anyone here with applicable experience share their knowledge or advice?

hoary frigate
carmine spire
hoary frigate
shrewd pilot
# carmine spire Yes, the stubs infrastructure is what the VSCode plugin used, but the details we...

if you want some further info, the reason for that package to work is that language servers and other tools (like mypy or pyright) use .pyi files to gather type information (as per PEP 561)

the initial use-case for such files (they do nothing at runtime, the interpreter can't even import them) was for library authors to distribute type hints without adding them into the actual code, such that they could maintain compatibility with Python2's syntax

however, it is also a great tool for micro/circuit python, because they can be used to "show the contents" of the modules built into this "special" Python implementation

carmine spire
# shrewd pilot if you want some further info, the reason for that package to work is that langu...

I appreciate the additional info. pip install circuitpython-stubs complained about an externally-managed-environment under Arch (CachyOS), so I still have further to climb down this rabbit hole before reaching my goal.

I'm not sure if Kate's Python LSP uses or needs a virtual environment, or if it's even wise to install the stubs system wide, but it's helpful to read the PEP proposals to understand the inner workings. Thanks.

shrewd pilot
#

that is nothing specific to the lib or your distro

#

it is a python enhancement (another PEP whose number i wont look for) to try avoid issues due to installing several packages with different versions of the same library

#

you should make a virtual environment (it is best practice anyway)

narrow minnow
#

hey there all, I could use some help with a board that seems to be resisting having CircuitPython installed.
It's one of these - https://circuitpython.org/board/adafruit_qtpy_esp32s2/
I've had it for a while, but just pulled it out to work on a new project. I noticed that the TinyUF2 loader needed to be updated, so I took care of that (hopefully correctly!)
The board only boots into the bootloader mode (QTPYS2BOOT as the drive label).
If I try to copy a CircuitPython release from the website onto the drive, it copies, but then reboots back to the bootloader again.
The INFO_UF2.TXT file reads:

TinyUF2 Bootloader 0.35.0 - tinyusb (2a364ca27)
Model: Adafruit QT Py ESP32-S2
Board-ID: ESP32S2-QTPY-revB
Date: Jul 3 2025
Flash Size: 0x00160000 bytes
So I think I got the update correct, although that "Flash Size" parameter doesn't look right to me.
Any tips on what to try next?

shrewd pilot
carmine spire
shrewd pilot
#

iirc there is a flag like --break-system-packages or the like on pip install

gray cargo
gray cargo
narrow minnow
#

ooh, i bet I'm not in the "ROM bootloader" mode - let me try that real quick.

gray cargo
#

By the way, the headers are on upside down. I don't know if that's deliberate or not. The USB plug should be on top and the chip on the bottom.

narrow minnow
# gray cargo you don't want to be in ROM bootloader mode when copying the UF2 file to the boa...

Yes, I chose "Full CircuitPython 10.2.0 Install" from the "Open Installer" dialog. The first step there is to put the board in ROM bootloader mode (I assume to flash the latest TinyUF2). I missed that step, and so when the installer tries to connect over serial, it just hangs.
After flashing TinyUF2, then the installer proceeded to have me reset into the new TinyUF2 and is downloaded the CircuitPython uf2 file to the board.
It looks like this time it took! It rebooted into CircuitPython.
I'm not sure what went differently this time; the TinyUF2 info looked the same as it was before. But the installer did erase the flash, so maybe that was part of it?

narrow minnow
gray cargo
#

it might have been the flash erase. yes, the size shown was odd. Mine showed a different size. In any case, it sounds like success!

#

we try to have the pin labels on the top of the board (unlike Pi Pico, which deliberately went for a more bare esthetic)

narrow minnow
#

yeah, I can see how that would be helpful. In my case, I typically install them this way because I will often mount the board in a case, and so having the headers + the buttons + the USB port all on one side makes it easier for my purposes.

#

Well, I will say - this is a fantastic form factor. I love all the QtPy boards I have with various SoCs on them, and they're almost always my first choice if I don't need all the I/O on a larger board.

gray cargo
#

if you use this one with the matching "BFF" boards, just be careful about orientation. BFF boards are already a little confusing, because they are used back-to-back with the QT Py's, unlike FeatherWings.

sick cairn
stone sonnet
#

Just saw the stream on I2S in and am wondering now if I can use PDMIn to receive I2S signals so that I can pass audio data between two boards..

#

Otherwise I also found the adafruit library that uses PIO for I2S and seems much more flexible than the audiobusio library

#

So yay pretty much my questions/prayers from far back have been answered

carmine spire
# gray cargo See this about virtual envs and Python: <https://learn.adafruit.com/python-virtu...

Thanks, but that is way too many tedious hurdles for autocomplete. Besides, writing code by hand is dead at this point anyway, so I'll just go back to manually referencing the docs on the increasingly rare occasions when I even bother at all anymore.

I do sometimes miss how delightful VSCode's CircuitPython devops experience was, but not enough to install Microsoft's tentacles again on Linux.

shrewd pilot
#

given that:

  • typing stubs wont break anything (as they do nothing, other than affect some tooling)
  • none of your installed packages will depend on it anyway, so it's not like something could break due to mismatched version
    i would just install them system wide (pip install --break-system-packages ...) and call it a day
#

or is that flag missing/blocked on your pip?

carmine spire
shrewd pilot
#

Yeah, it is not something you should regularly do, but given the use-case, there is no risk as far as im aware

Just in case there is a misunderstanding here: the flag is not "lets break system packages" but "i know it could break things, let me install this one time"
As I briefly described the other day, the point for this feature is to protect you from breaking something if you had a package A installed, that depends on another package B, because you could happen to install another thing C that updated B to a version that is no longer compatible with A(ie: breaking A)

But this library has no dependencies (ie: no other packages would be affected in your system) and nothing will depend on the stubs themselves either

#

Disclaimer: I don't mean pushing you into installing anything, im just trying to give some insight on why the thing exists and why I suggested to hack around it with the flag

carmine spire
molten marten
#

I am connecting a esp32 feather v2 to a motor feather wing, when i try to talk to this over i2c it disconnects the REPL almost immediately, anyone know why?

#

(i have recenty used this configuration with the appropriate library perfectly fine, i just want to test out some busio i2c commands)

dapper finch
#

Or it's a system crash

molten marten
#

I thought maybe but it happens via usb or battery and it doesn't happen if I use the proper library

#

So my thought is maybe a crash of some sort but I can't see why that would happen

#

Since im running some very basic commands

dapper finch
#

See when you activate it the motor will demand more power that's why it happens

molten marten
#

Theres no motor attached and its attached to a seperate power source anyway

dapper finch
#

Ohh that's interesting you finish coding

dapper finch
#

If you've finished coding then use a battery and see what happens

molten marten
#

I havent because I havent worked out whats caused the issue lol

dapper finch
#

How did you do that

#

Was the issue power burnout

molten marten
#

I said I havent

#

Lol

molten marten
#

Ive tried with the feather board and a seperate i2c sensor and both times i end up with the board disconnected from REPL anytime I try anything to do with i2c, including just scanning for devices, though the scan does return addresses the board disconnects shortly after

molten marten
gray cargo
molten marten
#

it doesnt

#

also if i have the device connected but dont do anything with it, it also doesnt disconnect

gray cargo
#

and which I2C devices do you have on hand to test with?

#

do you have other CircuitPython boards besides the ESP32 V2?

molten marten
#

SO i have a CJMCU-008 which is a magnenometer board and i have a feather motor driver which communicates via i2c apparently

#

erm, i got a pi pico 2 literally this morning, that can do circuitpython right?

gray cargo
#

yes

#

does the motor driver board do the same thing?

molten marten
#

it does

#

though i was using the library with it yesterday and that worked fine

#

(i havent tested this recently)

gray cargo
#

so just the scan is an issue?

molten marten
#

im unsure, it always disconnects after a scan thougyh, so far

gray cargo
#

can try CircuitPython 10.1.4 or 10.0.3 or 9.2.9. That will help us diagnose. I will try ESP32 V2 later with some I2C breakouts.

#

It's likely to be specific to the ESP32

molten marten
#

Allrighty, i have a few things to do irl rn but ill try this out when i get the chance, ty for the idea

mellow marsh
#

I have a patch for an Unexpected Maker Feather S3 (D Series) board that I think I'm ready to make a PR for. Can I get a pre-review before PR creation?

gray cargo
molten marten
#

i actually have no idea if what im getting back is CORRECT, but it does seem to be working

gray cargo
molten marten
#

I dont really know enough to know if im getting actual useable info back, but it appears to work, and hasnt disconnected so far

gray cargo
#

Maybe try loading 10.2.0 again. If you are using the OPEN INSTALLER method, it may not be working quite right, so you could try esptool.

molten marten
#

i used the web app to install if that helps

#

ill try uploading 10.2.0 again

#

yeah after the reinstall of 10.2.0 i can use your trial and it works fine

gray cargo
molten marten
#

Thanks for your help!

#

now i just need to work out how to get usable data off this thing!

gray cargo
#

but if you need wifi, then you can use what you have. An Espressif ESP32-S3 board would also be good for hat.

#

and would present CIRCUITPY

molten marten
#

well originally i was going to use a pico (for the picocalc) and the esp32 i allready had

#

but i accidently ordered two pico 2 w

#

so i guess im putting one in the picocalc and i can use the other one as a seperate platform?

gray cargo
#

could do that sure

molten marten
#

i shall think about it anyway!

crystal shadow
#

@forest stag @solar orchid. Greetings Music lovers. I am attempting to build a MIDI converter. We lost our organist to a tragic accident and I picked up the slack. Problem is I dont play the keyboard. So I found a program call MuseScore 4 that I can peck the notes in and it plays mp3 on an iPad. There ar times when the Key Signatures slow me down. I do great I C and G major but after that it take forever to put in a 3 minute hymn in. I want to use Esp32 to convert from Arturia keyboard to my laptop and in-between. I have 5 pin MIDI plugs or USB. Does this sound plausible. Do I need special hardware?

solar orchid
crystal shadow
solar orchid
# crystal shadow What i am attempting to do with the esp32 is have it change the key signature on...

Ah! The easiest to get going would be the MIDI Featherwing and just about any Feather. Doesn't have to be ESP32, unless you want WiFi for some reason. If you want it smaller then you'll be soldering. The MIDI part of the code is pretty straightforward, something like:


while True:
    msg = midi_uart.receive()  # receive MIDI from IN 5-pin jack
    if msg:
        print("midi msg:",msg)
        if (isinstance(msg, NoteOn) or isinstance(msg, NoteOff)):
            msg.note = msg.note + scale_adjustment 
        midi_uart.send(msg)      # forward to MIDI devices on OUT 5-pin jack

I would not recommend using the USB host stuff and try to plug the USB cable from your keyboard in because the USB host stuff doesn't work reliably

crystal shadow
#

Oh didnt think about that. I look to see if I have that in my inventory

crystal shadow
solar orchid
# crystal shadow Which feather board would you recommend.

Probably the Feather RP2040. It's very popular and CircuitPython on it is very stable. But one of the ESP32-S3 feathers with a built-in display and buttons is also nice if you don't want to wire up a rotary encoder, you could just use the display & buttons as the UI

crystal shadow
carmine spire
#

If I want to remove all items in list foo[], is there any semantic difference between foo.clear() and foo=[]?

Is one strategy more efficient than the other, or is one perhaps a better choice for triggering garbage collection? If foo[] was especially large, should I delete it manually and then call gc.collect() myself? Advice welcome.

ruby notch
#

disclaimer: my knowledge is generally for pure python, so I'm not sure how much it'll apply here, but it should?

clear vs assigning a new variable mostly depends on if you want to reuse the same object instance, like if it's part of a class or there's a reference passed around somewhere

generally assigning a new variable is fine and probably(?) slightly faster, except in those edge cases

For large lists, you can just del foo, i dont think there's ever really any advantage in doing GC manually with python (though this might be different in embedded systems)

carmine spire
ruby notch
#

o7
do watch in case anyone more experienced with circuitpython has anything else, especially on garbage collection

sick cairn
#

Can I use an RTC with sub-second datetime resolution?

#

But maybe someone has found a way?

#

One way might be to grab the RTC datetime at the top of the script, subtract the builtin datetime, and store it as a timedelta that you add to every datetime. But this assumes that the builtin datetime doesn't drift

storm spire
sick cairn
#

Maybe that's unrealistic for circuitpython? I don't know yet

storm spire
sick cairn
#

Now, you might say that it's unecessary to log every timestamp

#

I think TDMS only does one timestamp at the top and then measures elapsed time?

storm spire
sick cairn
#

Hmmm. I guess the single-timestamp option would be a lot simpler

#

Thank you for your input. I will consider

#

It's too bad there's no method in adafruit_datetime to set the current date

graceful vine
#

when I plug my s3 matrix portal in directly in pic 2 it works perfectly fine is there a way to do it in pic 1 since I don’t want it sticking out. Do I just have to “rotate” the pins in my code

IMG_7373.jpg IMG_7372.jpg
solar orchid
graceful vine
#

hmm why would it be good to have it sticking out im afraid of it breaking lol i guess ill just use a cable

solar orchid
graceful vine
#

ah right the buttons that makes sense never really used em but i see the vision

warm umbra
#

Can Circuitpython read raw 802.11 beacon frames? I want to detect commercial delivery drones.

abstract wedge
sick cairn
warm umbra
#

I think the drone remote id frames get filtered out. As I haven't received one yet I don't know. Using idf to gather field data.

gilded dove
#

I have a question:
Is it possible to have a UART REPL with circuitpython, so that I can use the USB port for bulk communication?

sick cairn
gilded dove
foggy osprey
gray cargo
# foggy osprey seems like REPL/Console on hardware UART was requested, but not implemented, yet...

@foggy osprey @gilded dove It is implemented via compile switches. However, you can enable a secondary USB CDC (serial) channel for sending data, that is separate from the REPL: https://learn.adafruit.com/customizing-usb-devices-in-circuitpython/circuitpy-midi-serial#usb-serial-console-repl-and-data-3096590. I think this addresses your original need. This does not work well on Espressif chips due to endpoint limitations, but is fine on most other chips: https://learn.adafruit.com/customizing-usb-devices-in-circuitpython/how-many-usb-devices-can-i-have

dense olive
abstract wedge
#

or is that only for sending frames?

dense olive
#

if we're talking about espressif microcontrollers, monitor works out of the box with CircuitPython

#

monitor is not implemented for the raspberrypimicrocontroller port

abstract wedge
#

thanks for the correction

dense olive
#

sending frames would be handy, but that's not implemented (yet?)

#

It's possible that some drones use some other form of Open Drone ID / Remote ID besides Beacon frames (Bluetooth?). Over the past two years, I've only detected DJI drones using Beacon frames... not sure if that's because that's all that's happening near me, or whether other drones are using some other method.

gilded dove
solar orchid
# gilded dove thanks, I didn't know that USB could do multiple types of communication on the s...

What do you mean by "raw USB bulk communication"? Do you mean data over USB CDC? Do you mean sending/receiving USB HID INPUT, OUTPUT, or FEATURE reports? Or do you mean low-level USB packets (Handshake, token, data) that's normally done by the USB stack? If the latter, no. If USB "Raw HID", then yes. There are several examples of this, here's one: https://gist.github.com/todbot/6c39e9f2e9719643e5be8f1c82cf9f79 If you mean packaging up data into a protocol over USB CDC, that's up to you. Many times you can do a formatted print (e.g. print("%0.2f %10s\n", a_float, a_string)) and have the corresponding parser on the host. You can also use struct.pack() and struct.unpack() if you want a byte-oriented protocol.
Oh and if you mean you want a second USB CDC channel that doesn't interfere with the REPL, you can do usb_cdc.enable(console=True, data=True) in boot.py to get a second USB CDC port for just data transmission

gilded dove
#

I also dont think its HID related

solar orchid
# gilded dove I think I want none of those options. im looking to get "bulk communication". I ...

asfaik, you cannot do this in CircuitPython. Is there a reason why you want to instead of using a standard USB protocol?
On some OSes (notably Windows) that will require custom drivers to be installed. You can get pretty close (same 64-byte packet on an IN or OUT endpoint, and maybe even use the same host code) with RawHID on the CircuitPython side. The downside is you may have to detach the HID kernel driver on the host
(I'm assuming "UDB" is a typo and "USB" was meant)

gilded dove
#

thanks for your help

#

I asked an AI if it could give me an example of what I want and it generated this:

import usb.core
import time

# Wait for device to enumerate
print("Waiting for USB device...")
dev = None
while dev is None:
    dev = usb.core.find(idVendor=0x1234, idProduct=0x5678)
    time.sleep(0.5)

dev.set_configuration()
print("Device found:", hex(dev.idVendor), hex(dev.idProduct))

# Bulk write / read
dev.write(0x01, b"Hello from ESP32-S3 host!")
data = bytes(dev.read(0x81, 64, timeout=2000))
print("RX:", data)

Is this legit?

solar orchid
# gilded dove thanks for your help

So you want the CircuitPython board to be the USB host? If so, that may be possible. Check out the source to adafruit_usb_host_descriptors and adafruit_usb_host_midi. Both of these show how to do IN/OUT/CTRL transfers on a usb.core.Device using a very PyUSB-like API. But be aware that USB host stuff only works on I think RP2 chips and then is pretty lossy. I tried using it for USB MIDI and I lost too many packets for it to be worth it
https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_CircuitPython_USB_Host_Descriptors/blob/main/adafruit_usb_host_descriptors.py
https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_CircuitPython_USB_Host_MIDI/blob/main/adafruit_usb_host_midi.py
https://docs.circuitpython.org/en/latest/shared-bindings/usb/core/index.html

solar orchid
gilded dove
#

btw, AI told me that USB host is not possible in micropython, would that be correct?

solar orchid
gray cargo
gilded dove
gray cargo
gilded dove
gray cargo
#

what is the model number?

#

ok, looks like the USB transfer program is called "FA-124".

#

yeesh

gilded dove
gray cargo
#

but you know better than me

gilded dove
#

in custom apps you can only use raw communication on IN and OUT endpoints

gray cargo
#

ah, so it's the apps themselves, they can't call into the mass storage API's

#

so, sorry, no, we don't have raw USB bulk transfer available for USB devices (as opposed to host). I don't remember any previous call for this, actually. There seem to be some Arduino libraries that could work.

gilded dove
#

wdym "as opposed to host"

gray cargo
#

sorry, I missed that you want the CircuitPython board to be a usb host, talking to the calc, which is acting as a USB device. So what todbot says applies.

gilded dove
#

so

import usb.core
gray cargo
gray cargo
foggy osprey
#

is there a way to have the label aligned at top edge of Button (adafruit_button) or should I rather create a text label above the button for this?

shrewd meadow
# foggy osprey is there a way to have the label aligned at top edge of Button (`adafruit_button...

There is nothing in the button public API that would allow you to move the text label. Technically you could access button._label to get a reference to the Label object and change its position with that reference. I'm not sure if it will throw off the math used to determine if button is pressed, it may not account for label outside of button space.

Using a separate label is probably best though.

stone briar
#

Hello! I get this error when I try to use "from adafruit_ble import BLERadio"

image.png
#

What could I be missing?

#

do I need to find that lib and save it to my chip?

sick cairn
#

Some people use circup for such dependency management

#

I probably should try it out - it's an easy install with pip

molten marten
#

little typo in that

sick cairn
#

Please correct

silent flame
#

I'd like to set the gain of one of these microphones (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1713) in software on an RP2040. The gain pin can either be low, high or floating for different settings. Can I achieve the floating state when I deinit() the GPIO pin connected to it?

Electret Microphone Amplifier - MAX9814 with Auto Gain Control

Add an ear to your project with this well-designed electret microphone amplifier with AGC. This fully assembled and tested board comes with a 20-20KHz electret microphone soldered on. For ...

gray cargo
silent flame
gray cargo
gray cargo
#

PicoCalc

stone briar
#

here is tricky one for me, when my board is advertising i cant change the name that shows up in the bluetooth scanner. how would i fix this?

#

this is what i am using:

image.png
gray cargo
#

then don't bother to set the name in the advertisement. You may need to forget the device on the phone or host computer, because things like the name are often aggressively cached and may stick even after being changed

stone briar
gray cargo
stone briar
#

This is what I use now that works:

image.png
#

So it seems incorporating the HID helped?

gray cargo
stone briar
gray cargo
stone briar
#

I was using the Nice!Nano CircuitPython bootloader with it

gray cargo
molten marten
#

Quick question, using circuitpython can i use bluetooth on a pi pico 2 w

stone briar
molten marten
#

yup

gray cargo
#

CircuitPython does not yet support BLE on Pico 2W. It is supported on nRF52840 and various Espressif chips.

molten marten
#

ah dangit

stone briar
molten marten
#

i could but i was specifically looking to use circuitpython for this, its not a huge deal, just one of the side projects to the main project im working on

#

What wireless communication is available with circuitpython and the pico 2w, if any?

gray cargo
#

wifi

molten marten
#

wifi IS supported?

gray cargo
#

yes, just not BLE

#

wifi is well supported

molten marten
#

Right, not a big deal then, i can probably use my pc/home server as a bridge if i really wanna talk to something bluetooth

#

depending on the revision of thing i was trying to connect to it might not even be BLE/supported properly anyway so thats not a huge problem

#

This guy for anyone wondering

stone briar
#

can a single instance pf ProvideServicesAdvertisement contain multiple services or do i need an instance of ProvideServicesAdvertisement for each service? It looks like it can but im not sure how to format it.

gray cargo
#

you don't need the other arguments

stone briar
#

ah ok cheers!

gray cargo
# stone briar ah ok cheers!

wait I am wrong, don't pass a list, just pass multiple arguments, like ProvideServicesAdvertisement(service1, service2, ...)

stone briar
#

ah a tuple

gray cargo
#

not a tuple, it takes a variable number of argumetns

stone briar
#

ohh

gray cargo
#

self, *services: Service, entry: Optional[ScanEntry] = None
*services is one or more arguments

stone briar
#

So can I just pass in (HIDService, UARTService, ...) I will try that

gray cargo
stone briar
#

Ok so like this then

image.png
gray cargo
#

right, try that

#

note that device_info was not passed and is not used, but you could pass it. That's just a bug

stone briar
gray cargo
#

some of the examples create it and don't use it

stone briar
#

yeah I started from an example, didnt even realize it wasnt used

stone briar
#

This DOES work, *ad = ProvideServicesAdvertisement(hid) * and if ad.complete_name == 'rhf_periph' and HIDService in ad.services:

#

So I do not think I can detect the UARTService

#

This does NOT work

*ad = ProvideServicesAdvertisement(hid, uart) * and if ad.complete_name == 'rhf_periph' and HIDService in ad.services:

as well as

*ad = ProvideServicesAdvertisement(uart) * and if ad.complete_name == 'rhf_periph' and UARTService in ad.services:

gray cargo
stone briar
#

i will test

stone briar
gray cargo
stone briar
gray cargo
#

You can just link to it with "Copy Message Link". But make the issue understandable without reference to the discord -- thanks.

stone briar
gray cargo
#

thank you!

dusky shard
#

I understand that boot.py runs in its own VM but it is able to do some things like board.display.rotation=180 and have it persist later when code.py runs. However it is unable to do sys.path.append('/bin') and have it persist later in REPL or code.py. Is there a mechanism for automatically doing things that persist in REPL ala UNIX .profile or the like.

stone briar
#

Is there an example of bidirectional UARTService use? Or do I need to make two ble connections between my devices?

gray cargo
stone briar
#

Should this exit loop when my peripheral resets and stops communicating? Im trying to write a way to lose connection gracefully. It doesnt seem to see that connection is not connected and fails on the uart.write()

ble = BLERadio()
connection = ble.connect(ad)

image.png
#

I get this instead

image.png
gray cargo
#

if there's an abrupt disconnection between checking for the connection and trying a uart read/write, then you could get an exception. You want to catch the exception and recover gracefully

stone briar
#

ok. Im still new to pyton. i didnt think to look up how to try/catch thanks!

stone briar
#

Ok. here is 'graceful' recovery:

image.png
gray cargo
#

https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/05/15/circuitpython-10-3-0-alpha-2-released/
Highlights:

  • Fix crashes on certain boards with integral displays.
  • Adafruit MagTag 2025: improve display quality and support new display variant.
  • Add CIRCUITPY_SDCARD_USB to settings.toml to control visibility of a mounted SD card on USB.
  • Support float values in settings.toml.
  • Report USB MSC drives as removable media to the host.
  • Update ESP-IDF to v6.0.1.
  • Fix audiomixer.Mixer regressions on SAMx5x.
  • STM: support audio.AudioOut, using DAC.
stone briar
#

is getting this error normal?

AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'time_ns'

i have import time

ruby notch
#

what's your filename?

#

though ig it's possible circuitpython is based on a really old python version

stone briar
stone briar
ruby notch
#

oh strange

stone briar
#

let me see if i can see which python my chip is using

ruby notch
#

if I had to guess, it's built on python < 3.7, but if not, that's now beyond my knowledge haha

#

my guess was you had a file named time.py somewhere clobbering the namespace

gray cargo
tribal axle
#

hi i’m new to CP but I know MP pretty well. I have written a bunch of C module ‘accelerators’ for MP to support https://pycoclaw.com and would like to add them to CP, are there any resources for that? Can I just compile CP with them same as i do MP?

PycoClaw — OpenClaw for Embedded

PycoClaw — OpenClaw for embedded. Full AI agent on a $5 device.

sick cairn
gray cargo
tribal axle
#

They depend on the os that MP runs on eg esp-idf or Zephyr, using their respective https stacks eg to support wss:// for webrepl-binary https://github.com/jetpax/webrepl

(This is so that Scripto Studio https://scriptostudio.com can communicate securely with the target)

They are structured as regular Cmodules that expose new features eg import webrepl-binary , and there are a few patches added at build time to the 1.28 tree.

When you say “latent support for MP that we havent turned on ” what does that mean for developers?

GitHub
GitHub - jetpax/webrepl

Contribute to jetpax/webrepl development by creating an account on GitHub.

ScriptO Studio — Program Embedded Devices with Natural Language

A next-generation IDE for MicroPython. Program embedded devices with natural language. No firmware updates required.

gray cargo
tribal axle
#

ok thanks Dan

stone briar
# gray cargo Try the example: <https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_CircuitPython_BLE/blob/ma...

so ive used what i learned there to get a challenge/response kind of communication going.

On the central device, i can use except ConnectionError: to detect the peripheral dropping out.

on the peripheral side i am using (time.monotonic_ns() - timeout_start) / 1e9) > timeout_limit to detect when central hasnt sent any data in a while. (Between the two I have a heartbeat signal that fires every half second to keep it alive)

is there a better way to detect connection loss on the peripheral?

gray cargo
#

so .connected is still true on the peripheral side even though the central has gone away?

stone briar
#

It seems so. When I interrupt central's connection. I stop receiving heartbeats and ble.connection is still true

image.png
gray cargo
#

I think there is no way to tell if the central is really gone or just being slow. So a timeout is ok.

stone briar
gray cargo
#

I did a lot of work on BLE in the past, but it's very complicated and it takes a while to remember things. So I might be wrong, but I think that makes sense.

stone briar
gilded dove
# gray cargo yes, doc in <https://docs.circuitpython.org/en/latest/shared-bindings/usb/core/i...

sorry for bringing this up again, I know it's been a while but I am facing some issues.
I made this simple code to test USB host:

import usb.core
import time

# Wait for device to enumerate
print("Waiting for USB device...")
dev = None
while dev is None:
    dev = usb.core.find(idVendor=0x1234, idProduct=0x5678)
    time.sleep(0.5)

dev.set_configuration()
print("Device found:", hex(dev.idVendor), hex(dev.idProduct))

# Bulk write / read
dev.write(0x01, b"Hello from ESP32-S3 host!")
data = bytes(dev.read(0x81, 64, timeout=2000))
print("RX:", data)

but I get an error:

Waiting for USB device...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 8, in <module>
RuntimeError: No usb host port initialized

I searched the error on google and these docs appeared:
https://docs.circuitpython.org/en/latest/shared-bindings/usb_host/index.html

so I tried importing usb_host and the module was not found
am I missing something? how can a board ship with a module that requires another that is not shipped with it?

gray cargo
snow storm
#

Hey everyone! 👋

I'm looking to learn about the Raspberry Pi 5 2GB. Does anyone here have experience with it or can point me to some good learning resources? 🙏

gray cargo
#

#help-with-linux-sbcs is the channel for that. We have a wrapper library called Blinka for regular Python on that board that allows you to run CircuitPython and talk to hardware: https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-raspberrypi-linux.
If you are using Python, see https://learn.adafruit.com/python-virtual-environment-usage-on-raspberry-pi for info about installing libraries.
Otherwise there is a ton of material elsewhere about how to use RPi's. I find the material on the Raspberry Pi websites themselves is often the best when it comes to setup.

gilded dove
gray cargo
gilded dove
sudden kiln
#

I'm trying out sdcardio / fourwire display / USB mass storage, and while I haven't broken anything (so far) I have noticed that the display gets interrupted partway into refresh when MS is active, and I'm wondering what I could do from user space to get it to not stutter. (at least not as badly) I'm in exploration mode with this one.

gray cargo
#

If you don't need the USB access, you can turn it off in 10.3.0-alpha.2 by putting CIRCUITPY_SDCARD_USB=false in settings.toml.

#

but I have also not seen the interruptions you are seeing on various boards with displays, such as PyPortal.

sudden kiln
#

Nod. I'll probably do that once I'm out of explore mode. And I can share better in a couple days.

molten marten
#

@gray cargo Would you happen to have that keyboard test code? I forgot to save it

gray cargo
molten marten
#

Ah ofc. that would have worked, thanks i apologise

gray cargo
#

no problem 🙂

molten marten
#

Hoping to get the time to turn it into a workable driver sometimes...soonish

#

this is essentially pretty close allready haha

cosmic swift
#

Trying to understand how plugging a keyboard INTO an ESP32-S3 board works. I have read CircuitPython natively supports reading input from a USB keyboard meaning you plug in the keyboard and it will work. However the board must have USB Host capabilities and S3s with native USB are not hosts? So you need to add a host board in between? Am I getting that correct?

sick cairn
cosmic swift
empty rivet
gray cargo
ancient crown
#

and once you follow that link, use this button to download the circuitpython firmware UF2 file:

image.png
empty rivet
ancient crown
#

np. if you run into anything else, just ask.

hot bison
#

P4 has two native USBs so one is device and one is host

cosmic swift
molten marten
#

Anyone here got an experience writing display drivers? Having some problems with a driver and im unsure if its the settings in the driver or something else entirely

hot bison
#

RP2s can do it with PIO on any pins

cosmic swift
# hot bison Yup, why do you need an s3?

I don't. It was just something that I was playing around with for potential future use with one of those USB connected 3-button 1-knob (encoder) mini keyboards that run off a CH552 micro. I generally prefer the ESPs simply for the easy WiFi connection. I do have some RP2040 and RP2350 boards around. By RP2 I assume you mean RP2350 vs RP2040? Or did you mean RP2s as in RP2xxx which covers both? And is it doable in CircuitPython?

hot bison
#

yup, both can do usb host from any pins

#

it uses a core and pio under the hood

cosmic swift
hot bison
#

yup

#

you do usb_host.Port(pin, pin) iirc

cosmic swift
# hot bison yup

Excellent. I will spend some time with one of those boards then. Thank you for the guidance.

gray cargo
#

@stone briar I'm working on some BLE stuff. Re scan_response. You do not need to supply an explicit scan response. If you omit that argument, start_advertising() creates a scan response (if the original advertisement is not extended), and puts standard stuff in it. From adafruit_ble/__init__.py:

        advertisement_bytes = bytes(advertisement)
        scan_response_bytes = b""
        if not scan_response and len(advertisement_bytes) <= 31:
            scan_response = Advertisement()
            scan_response.complete_name = self.name
            scan_response.tx_power = self.tx_power
        if scan_response:
            scan_response_bytes = bytes(scan_response)
stone briar
stone briar
#

I see that it extends an Iterable

image.png
#

When I try to pass in a list, set, or tuple python comlpains that:

image.png
#

I dont understand how to pass an Iterable without using a list, set or tuple

gray cargo
#

A * in front of an arg name means you can pass multiple arguments, not wrapped up in a list, tuple, etc.

#

however, there may not be room in the advertisement for all the services you provide. You don't have to include all the possible services in the advertisement. The central will do "discovery" and enumerate all the available services

stone briar
#

So If I look at this how would I populate this with 2 services and entry?

image.png
stone briar
gray cargo
#

ProvideServicesAdvertisement(hid,uart) or ProvideServicesAdvertisement(*services)

#

the latter flattens the services list into multiple arguments

#

it's a python thing 🙂

stone briar
gray cargo
#

same thing is true in HID: kbd.send(Keycode.A, Keycode.Space, Keycode.X, ...)

stone briar
gray cargo
# 
>>> def print_all(*args):
...     for arg in args:
...         print(arg)
...         
>>> print_all(2)
2
>>> print_all(2, 4)
2
4
>>> print_all(2, 4, 6)
2
4
6
>>>