Hello Everyone:

I bought some DoIT modules from Aliexpress and have experienced nothing but frustration.

I'll focus on the "NodeMCU" module. I plug it into the usb, I see a ch340 in device manager on COM4 (or 5 or 6 depending on USB port).

I open Arduino IDE1.8.6, I select either the .9 or the 1.0 NodeMCU. This is listed for an esp-12 but it's the only one that sort of responds. I select a sketch, any sketch, doesn't matter. The IDE says it's writing but I can't see any activity on my module, only a solid red led.

I'm so frustrated, what am I missing? I've held flash down during the entire process. I've depressed flash on power up, held down, pressed and released reset, then released flash button.

no matter what I do, all I can get it to say, and this is after I press the reset button, is this:

21:14:37.835 ->

21:14:37.835 -> ets Jan 8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(3,6)

21:14:37.836 ->

21:14:37.836 -> load 0x4010f000, len 1384, room 16

21:14:37.836 -> tail 8

21:14:37.836 -> chksum 0xef

21:14:37.836 -> csum 0xef

21:14:37.836 -> csum err

21:14:37.836 -> ets_main.c

I've found thirteen different resources that state thirteen different methods. Nothing works. I've tried different com ports, every baud rate, every SPIFF setting, every sketch.

What am I missing? Do I have a bad module? Is there any documentation for this stuff anywhere? Does anyone have a procedure for figuring out why I can't get a response from this thing?

I keep trying and trying, I've had probably over a hundred failures over three days at this point.

What do? HELP!