Firmware update on Developer Board
It's important to regularly update your Developer Board to keep it up to date. This tutorial will guide you through the necessary steps to successfully update the firmware of your Developer Board.
This tutorial assumes that you're familiar with the basics of the command line. If you’re unfamiliar with the command line, please refer to the Windows or MacOS/Linux command line tutorials.
The first thing you need to do is to download the latest Developer Board firmware.
To get the latest pre-built firmware, do the following:
Go to the Update Server page.
There, you can find the following version of the Developer Board firmware:
- Release: The most stable version of the firmware, which went through rigorous testing. The Release firmware version has the following format: X.Y.Z/, where X, Y, and Z are the build numbers. We recommend installing this version of the firmware.
- Release-candidate: The firmware version which hasn't been tested yet and may contain bugs. The Release-candidate firmware version has the following format: X.Y.Z-rc/, where X, Y, and Z are the build numbers.
- Development: The firmware version which builds every day and contains the latest features but might be unstable.
Open the folder with the latest Release firmware and download the blackmagic-firmware-s2-full-X.Y.Z.tgz file.
After downloading the firmware archive, extract it into a folder:
- On MacOS and Linux, you can use the tar command:
Don't forget to replace X.Y.Z with the actual version number and set the destination directory!
Install the tools below if you haven't already.
Download and install Python3. Make sure to check the “Add Python to PATH” option during installation.
To install the pip package manager, run the following command in the Terminal:
If this command fails, please refer to the official pip documentation for alternative installation methods.
esptool is a command-line utility for flashing ESP8266 and ESP32 microcontrollers, including the ESP32-S2 in your Developer Board.
To install esptool, run the following command in the Terminal:
If this command fails, try using pip instead of pip3. If this didn’t help, please refer to the official esptool installation manual.
List all of the serial devices on your computer.
On Windows, go to Device Manager and expand the Ports (COM & LPT) section.
View the devices in the list.
Connect the Developer Board to your computer using a USB-C cable.
Switch your Developer Board to Bootloader mode:
- Press and hold the BOOT button.
- Press the RESET button while holding the BOOT button.
- Release the BOOT button.
Repeat Step 1 and view the name of your Developer Board that appeared in the list.
For example, on macOS:
Run the Terminal and navigate to the folder with the extracted firmware.
Run the following command to read the file with the flash command:
If you see the similar output, you can proceed to the Flashing step:
Don't use the exact command above for your Developer Board in the next step since it's just an example and may not match your firmware version!
If you get an error, ensure you’re in the correct directory and extracted the firmware archive correctly.
Copy the command you got from the previous step and replace the (PORT) part with the name of the serial device you learned earlier.
For Windows, replace (PORT) with the COM port number—for example, COM3.
Run the command in the Terminal.
Your command should look similar to this:
If you get an error, ensure that you’ve entered the correct serial device name and that the Developer Board is in Bootloader mode.
Wait till the firmware flashing is over. The flashing process takes about 30 seconds.
The Terminal output should look similar to this:
If the Terminal output has these two lines at the end, your Developer Board has been successfully updated:
If you get this warning, ignore it:
If you get an error message during the flashing process, such as:
Try doing the following:
- Disconnect the Developer Board from your computer, then reconnect it.
- Use a different USB port on your computer.
- Use a different USB-C cable.
After flashing the firmware, you can reboot the Developer Board by pressing the RESET button.
The Developer Board should appear as a serial device on your computer. Now, you can use it with the Black Magic Debug client of your choice.
