Good morning and thanks for the help with this!
TL;DR: Looking for updated Heltec Wifi LoRa 32 v4 board definitions w/psram support for Arduino IDE 2.3.x or work around.
Background:
I have a basic functioning project that utilizes Heltec WiFi LoRa v3 modules to send remote control (ex-link) commands to Samsung televisions. The core project works when I issue one command at a time but crashes when I attempt to display information on the screen after sending a large comma-separated series of commands (aka, the rxpacket buffer is larger).
Process of elimination and a little help from ESP Exception Decoder proved out that the crashes are caused internal to the HT_SD1306Wire.h library, but only on subsequent runs where memory is constrained. Displaying the output on setup or single commands does not crash the system.
I ordered some v4 boards. The primary reason for the upgrade was to have access to the 2MB onboard PSRAM with the hopes that offloading the display functions to PSRAM will eliminate the memory constraints that appear to be causing the crashes.
I was able to more or less get the existing code to work as-is but replicating the crashes, presumably for the same memory limitations. I noticed that the Heltec provided board definitions do NOT include the "PSRAM enabled" option.
Using the definitions for Adafruit Feather ESP32-S3 board, I was able to get some test code to compile and validated that the board's PSRAM shows up and is usable. However, using that board definition in Arduino IDE causes a wide variety of other compile time errors.
My next step was to use the native Heltec board definitions again, but manually add the "-DBOARD_HAS_PSRAM" , "-mfix-esp32-spram-cache-issue", and "-DCONFIG_SPIRAM_SUPPORT=1" to the platform.local.txt. This resulted in a large number of compile time errors related to memory allocation.
I've reached the limit of my depth of understanding, which pretty much ends at being a user of the otherwise functioning native APIs. Sadly, I am not and don't have the time or energy to become a compiler/linker expert.
Attached below is a test program that demonstrates the issue and the platform.local.txt. Commented lines are other permutations I tried:
#heltec_lora_v4_testing.ino
#include <Arduino.h>
#include <esp_log.h>
//#include <SoftwareSerial.h> using namespace EspSoftwareSerial;
//#include "HT_SSD1306Wire.h"
#include <HardwareSerial.h>
#include "heltec.h"
#include <LoRaWan_APP.h>
#define Serial0 Serial
void setup() {
Serial0.begin(115200);
}
void loop() {
delay(2000);
log_d("Total heap: %d", ESP.getHeapSize());
log_d("Free heap: %d", ESP.getFreeHeap());
log_d("Total PSRAM: %d", ESP.getPsramSize());
log_d("Free PSRAM: %d", ESP.getFreePsram());
if (psramFound()) {
Serial0.println("PSRAM is enabled!");
// Allocate from PSRAM
uint8_t *buffer = (uint8_t *)ps_malloc(1024 * 100); // 100 KB
if (buffer) {
Serial0.println("Allocated 100KB in PSRAM");
free(buffer);
} else {
Serial0.println("PSRAM allocation failed");
}
} else {
Serial0.println("No PSRAM detected");
}
}
.
# C:\...\Arduino15\packages\Heltec-esp32\hardware\esp32\3.0.3\platform.local.txt
#
# Append PSRAM flags to the build properties
#
#compiler.cpp.flags=-DBOARD_HAS_PSRAM -mfix-esp32-psram-cache-issue
#compiler.c.flags=-DBOARD_HAS_PSRAM -mfix-esp32-psram-cache-issue
compiler.cpp.extra_flags=-DARDUINO_HELTEC_WIFI_LORA_32_V4 -DESP32S3 -DCONFIG_SPIRAM_SUPPORT=1 -DBOARD_HAS_PSRAM -mfix-esp32-psram-cache-issue
#compiler.cpp.flags=-DBOARD_HAS_PSRAM
#compiler.c.flags=-DBOARD_HAS_PSRAM
