FreePocket NVS Diagnostics

Date: 2026-07-12

Current conclusion

The LittleFS preconfiguration test did not change runtime behavior: the ESP32 still boots in AP mode and does not connect to Wi-Fi Solax.

Do not generate more LittleFS variants by trial and error. The next diagnostic target is the ESP-IDF NVS partition.

Partition table source

FreePocket multipart packages currently use this partition-table artifact:

/srv/esp-platform/artifacts/14/148b959cbff1c38aa8e1d5c0ba9d612c54997b945e56a63f41223eef650653a1.bin

Decode command:

cd /opt/esp-platform/repo
scripts/freepocket-nvs-info.sh

Decoded partition table:

| Label | Type | Subtype | Offset | Size | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | nvs | data | nvs | 0x9000 | 0x5000 / 20480 bytes | | otadata | data | ota | 0xE000 | 0x2000 / 8192 bytes | | app0 | app | ota_0 | 0x10000 | 0x140000 / 1310720 bytes | | app1 | app | ota_1 | 0x150000 | 0x140000 / 1310720 bytes | | spiffs | data | spiffs | 0x290000 | 0x160000 / 1441792 bytes | | coredump | data | coredump | 0x3F0000 | 0x10000 / 65536 bytes |

NVS read workflow through Flasher Web

Use https://iot.aeizoon.com/flasher from Chrome or Edge on the Mac. The Mac is only the physical USB/browser endpoint; the project tooling remains on the VM.

Use 115200 baud for this ESP32 board because previous validation showed it is stable while 921600 can lose the flash connection.

The ESP32 must be connected in bootloader/flashing mode before reading if auto-reset does not work with the USB-TTL wiring.

Steps for the first dump:

Open https://iot.aeizoon.com/flasher.
Set baudrate to 115200.
Click Connect ESP32 and authorize the USB-TTL serial port.
Open Advanced.
Click FreePocket NVS.
Confirm:
- Offset: 0x9000
- Size: 0x5000
- Suggested filename: freepocket-nvs-before.bin
Click Read and download .bin.

After configuring the device manually with:

Wi-Fi SSID: Solax
Wi-Fi password value is not included
Web user: admin
Web password value is not included

repeat the read, using suggested filename:

freepocket-nvs-after-solax-admin.bin

The Flasher Web operation uses esptool-js readFlash through the current Web Serial connection and is read-only; it does not modify flash bytes.

Move dumps to the VM

From the Mac, after downloading the two files:

scp ~/Downloads/freepocket-nvs-before.bin ~/Downloads/freepocket-nvs-after-solax-admin.bin codex@192.168.1.62:/opt/esp-platform/repo/diagnostics/nvs/

Analyze with Espressif tools

Official parser installed in the VM:

/opt/esp-platform/tools/esp-idf/components/nvs_flash/nvs_partition_tool/nvs_tool.py

Repo links:

tools/nvs-diagnostics/nvs_partition_tool
tools/nvs-diagnostics/nvs_partition_generator

Espressif documentation states that nvs_tool.py parses NVS storage partitions, lists namespaces, entries, blobs/strings, and can run integrity checks. It does not decrypt encrypted NVS partitions.

Analyze one dump:

cd /opt/esp-platform/repo
scripts/analyze-nvs-dump.sh diagnostics/nvs/freepocket-nvs-before.bin
scripts/analyze-nvs-dump.sh diagnostics/nvs/freepocket-nvs-after-solax-admin.bin

Compare before/after:

cd /opt/esp-platform/repo
scripts/compare-nvs-dumps.sh \
  diagnostics/nvs/freepocket-nvs-before.bin \
  diagnostics/nvs/freepocket-nvs-after-solax-admin.bin

The comparison generates:

storage_info.txt
namespaces.txt
written.txt
minimal.txt
blobs.txt
all.json
hexdump.txt
minimal.diff
written.diff
blobs.diff
changed-ranges.txt

Static findings before NVS dump

LittleFS/static web content contains form fields and default JSON-like values for:

WIFI_SSID
WIFI_PASSWORD
WIFI_isValid
WEB_USERNAME
WEB_PASSWORD
MAINTAIN_CONFIG
MQTT_PASSWORD
MQTT_SOLAX_ENABLED
SOLAX_WIFI_SERIAL_NUMBER

The application binary contains strings related to ESP-IDF NVS and Wi-Fi persistence, including:

WIFI_STA_DEF
WIFI_AP_DEF
ap.ssid
ap.passwd
bssid.set
esp_phy_load_cal_data_from_nvs
NVS error symbols such as ESP_ERR_NVS_NOT_FOUND, ESP_ERR_WIFI_NVS, ESP_ERR_NVS_NO_FREE_PAGES

Interpretation:

LittleFS likely provides UI defaults/static configuration material.
Runtime effective Wi-Fi state may be persisted in NVS by ESP-IDF Wi-Fi and/or by FreePocket application namespaces.
The exact source of truth must be determined from before/after NVS dumps, not inferred from strings alone.

Open questions for the dump analysis

When both dumps are available, identify:

NVS namespaces present before and after configuration.
New or changed keys after setting Wi-Fi and web credentials.
Whether Wi-Fi credentials are stored under ESP-IDF Wi-Fi namespaces or FreePocket application namespaces.
Whether values are plain strings, blobs, integers, or structured serialized records.
Whether flags such as Wi-Fi enabled/valid/configured change independently from SSID/password.
Whether NVS integrity check reports valid pages and entries.
Whether NVS encryption is absent or present.

Do not implement yet

Do not modify firmware, generate NVS images, or add automatic NVS provisioning until the before/after NVS format is understood.