Notecard Outboard Firmware Update Issue with Firmware Size

1

Hello,
I am testing the outboard firmware update for the ESP32 using the Notecard Cellular product.
According to the guide documentation, it supports a maximum host binary size of 1.5MB.
However, based on my tests, OTA does not seem to work with that size.

OTA succeeded with the following sizes:
Bootloader (21,104 bytes) + Partition Table (3,072 bytes) + App Binary (1,157,120 bytes).
In this case, the output file size from notecard -binpack was 909,516 bytes.
This result was obtained by gradually reducing the app binary size until OTA succeeded.

Our productā€™s firmware size is almost 1.5MB. How can we perform OTA for firmware of that size?

2

Hi @jwsong,

Thanks for reporting this problem. I just observed a failure when attempting to flash a ~1.3 MB onto an Unexpected Maker FeatherS3 board. Iā€™m using the wiring from this post. The behavior they were seeing in that post seems similar to what youā€™ve described here. That poster came up with a workaround, but I really donā€™t think you should have to split up the binary like theyā€™ve done for this to work. Iā€™m going to see what I can do to fix this in the Notecard firmware.

In the meantime, when you get a chance, could you please follow the steps in this post, specifically either the ā€œManual Trace - Notecard Playgroundā€ or ā€œManual Trace - Serial Terminal Appā€ sections, and let me know what you see in the resulting log when you attempt to ODFU your 1.5 MB image?

Thanks for your patience!

Hayden Roche
Blues staff firmware engineer

3

Hooray! Very happy to see this issue get attention from Blues. I spent far too long banging my head against the wall on this.

4

notecard_2025-01-17T13_55_21.log (1.8 MB)
Thank you for your response.
I am attaching the logs from the ODFU process performed with the ESP32-S3 firmware on our custom board.
Please review them. Thank you.

5

Thanks @jwsong. I will let you know what I find.

6

Hi @jwsong,

Unfortunately, Iā€™m not yet able to reproduce the problem youā€™re encountering. Iā€™m using a NOTE-NBGL running the same firmware version as you. Are you able to share the .binpack file you are using?

Thanks,

Hayden

7

Apologies for the delayed response.

Of course, I can share the binpack. The model I am using is NOTE-NBGL, and the firmware version is 7.5.2.17004.

I am attaching the binpack here. Due to file extension restrictions during upload, I have changed the file extension.
2025-01-05-053106.binpack.txt (988.4 KB)

Thank you!

1 Like
8

With that, I was able to reproduce the problem youā€™re seeing. Iā€™ll keep you posted on what I find in debug. Thanks.

9

Iā€™ve resolved the problem and am now able to successfully ODFU an ESP32S3 using the .binpack you provided.

Thank you for working with me on this! We will be including the fix in the next Notecard firmware release.

2 Likes
10

I just saw your message. Wow, thatā€™s great news! When is the release expected? We need to start mass production of the product equipped with the note card soon.

Thank you.

11

Wow, thatā€™s great news! When is the release expected? We need to start mass production of the product equipped with the note card soon.

Thank you.

12

Hi @jwsong. Sorry for not responding sooner. The next release should be out by the end of March.

13

I appreciate your response.

2025ė…„ 2ģ›” 6ģ¼ (ėŖ©) ģ˜¤ģ „ 4:31, Hayden Roche via Blues Community Forum <notifications@blues.discoursemail.com>ė‹˜ģ“ ģž‘ģ„±: