On 17 July the MicroPython developer community released version 1.19.1. For the first time since I started working with the Espressif development boards (ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1-N8R2 and N8R8, ESP32-C3-DevKitC-02) I was able to flash everything with a standard release build instead of a nightly build in order to program all the boards with MicroPython. That was great news. Unfortunately the new release doesn’t allow working with the SPIRAM, neither the standard nor any of the latest nightlies. It’s unfortunate, but there’s plenty of other things I can do with these boards as long as I’m careful with how much RAM I use.

What I discovered with the nightlies, however, is that they’re now being built with the latest ESP-IDF release, 4.4.1. For example, if I run my little web server and look at the statistics at the bottom of the page, I see:

Note the last line showing IDFv4.4.1. IDF 4.4.1 is what I’ve got installed and what I’ve been working with. If the MicroPython master development branch has moved to 4.4.1 for ESP32 devices, then I just might clone the MicroPython repo and attempt to build a copy of MicroPython on my own. If that’s successful and I can then flash it on one of my S3 development boards, and if it works, then I’d like to understand what is causing SPIRAM to fail initialization and fix it so SPIRAM is available. Then there are other paths I’d like to follow…