I was able to upload once to it and after that I wasn’t able to connect to it anymore to change the sketch. I unplugged all peripherals connected to it but nothing that I tried so far worked.
I am running macOS Tahoe 26.2 on a MacBook Pro M1 2021
Also, I have the esp32 library form Espressif System installed in my Arduino IDE… and I installed the CH340c drivers which is the IC number on the board.
To fix the "No serial data received" error on an ESP32-S3 CAM, put the board into bootloader mode by holding down the BOOT/IO0 button while pressing/releasing RESET (RST), then releasing BOOT. Ensure you use a high-quality data USB cable, set the correct COM port, and try lowering the upload speed in Arduino IDE
Wrong Serial Port: Selected the wrong COM port in the IDE.
Lack of Power: The ESP32-S3 needs sufficient power during flashing; bad cables cause voltage drops.
Hardware Issues: Damaged USB port on the module.
the camera module was holding the UART pins busy. On many ESP32-S3-CAM boards, the camera (OV2640/OV5640) shares GPIOs with the UART or pulls lines that interfere with the bootloader handshake. Once you loaded your firmware the first time, the camera initialized on boot and locked those pins before esptool could connect.
Yeah, I ripped the camera out of the board and it started working again.
The solution is for this board essentially is to add a delay(2000) at the start of setup function so that the boot loader has time to connect without being hijacked by the camera module.
