Forum User reports adafruit_sdcard and esp32spi fail to share an spi bus

[jepler]

CircuitPython version

"I am on CircuitPython 7, and tried reverting back to 6.3, same results on both."

Code/REPL

# If you have an AirLift Featherwing or ItsyBitsy Airlift:
esp32_cs = DigitalInOut(board.D13)
esp32_ready = DigitalInOut(board.D11)
esp32_reset = DigitalInOut(board.D12)

spi = busio.SPI(board.SCK, board.MOSI, board.MISO)
# spi = board.SPI()
esp = adafruit_esp32spi.ESP_SPIcontrol(spi, esp32_cs, esp32_ready, esp32_reset)

sdcard = sdcardio.SDCard(spi, board.SD_CS)
vfs = storage.VfsFat(sdcard)
storage.mount(vfs, "/sd")

Behavior

['snare.wav', 'hat.wav', 'kick.wav']
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "code.py", line 59, in <module>
File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 335, in status
File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 325, in _send_command_get_response
File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 293, in _wait_response_cmd
File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 277, in _check_data
RuntimeError: Expected A0 but got 80

Description

Internet lore says that it's possible to share an SPI bus with an SD card and another device, as long as the SD card is initialized first.

User reports that the same error occurs when the SD card is initialized first. However, a full example in this order was not furnished as far as I saw.

If it's not a hardware impossibility, then it seems most likely the problem resides in the sd card code, perhaps failing to do "extra clocks" at the end of a transaction.

The recently added "CMD25" stuff does not seem relevant here, as the SD card is not being written in the example (and the problem is reported before the addition of CMD25).

Additional information

See https://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=185718

I am the one who opened this on the forum. I'm using the PyGamer with an Airlift ESP32 wing, which works fine with the sample code. Inserting an SD card (no code change) causes a "Timeout waiting for SPI char". Init the SD card causes the above error where it gets the wrong response. Simply eject the SD card and reload, the wifi works again.

[jepler]

I don't have quite the right hardware set-up, but I did find an airlift featherwing.

I put it together with a Feather Adalogger and a Feather M4 Express.

I've got CircuitPython 7.1.0-beta.1 loaded. My airlift version is old, 1.2.2, while you've got an up to date version.

Unfortunately, I'm not reproducing the problem yet. With or without the SD card inserted, the AirLift example completes OK. Even if I delete the lines to initialize the SD card and remove/re-insert it so it is not yet initialized into SPI mode.

Here's my full test program:

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2019 ladyada for Adafruit Industries
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

import os
import time

from adafruit_esp32spi import adafruit_esp32spi
from digitalio import DigitalInOut
import adafruit_esp32spi.adafruit_esp32spi_socket as socket
import adafruit_requests as requests
import board
import busio
import sdcardio
import storage

# Get wifi details and more from a secrets.py file
try:
    from secrets import secrets
except ImportError:
    print("WiFi secrets are kept in secrets.py, please add them there!")
    raise

print("ESP32 SPI webclient test")

JSON_URL = "http://api.coindesk.com/v1/bpi/currentprice/USD.json"



# If you have an AirLift Featherwing or ItsyBitsy Airlift:
esp32_cs = DigitalInOut(board.D13)
esp32_ready = DigitalInOut(board.D11)
esp32_reset = DigitalInOut(board.D12)

# Adalogger Featherwing
sd_cs = board.D10

spi = board.SPI()
# SD card must be initialized before AirLift
try:
    print("Attempting to mount sd card")
    sdcard = sdcardio.SDCard(spi, sd_cs) 
    vfs = storage.VfsFat(sdcard)
    storage.mount(vfs, '/sd')  
    print(os.listdir("/sd"))
except Exception as e:
    print("no sd card:", e)
    print("continuing")

esp = adafruit_esp32spi.ESP_SPIcontrol(spi, esp32_cs, esp32_ready, esp32_reset)
requests.set_socket(socket, esp)
    
if esp.status == adafruit_esp32spi.WL_IDLE_STATUS:
    print("ESP32 found and in idle mode")
print("Firmware vers.", esp.firmware_version)
print("MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in esp.MAC_address])
    
print("Connecting to AP...")
while not esp.is_connected:
    try:
        esp.connect_AP(secrets["ssid"], secrets["password"])
    except RuntimeError as e:
        print("could not connect to AP, retrying: ", e)
        continue
print("Connected to", str(esp.ssid, "utf-8"), "\tRSSI:", esp.rssi)
print("My IP address is", esp.pretty_ip(esp.ip_address))
    
for i in range(1):
    print(i) 
    r = requests.get(JSON_URL)
    data = r.json()
    print (data)
    r.close() 
        
print("Done!")

Typical output:

code.py output:
ESP32 SPI webclient test
Attempting to mount sd card
['overlays', 'kernel7.img', 'kernel.img', 'kernel7l.img', 'issue.txt', 'bcm2710-rpi-3-b-plus.dtb', 'kernel8.img', 'bcm2708-rpi-b-plus.dtb', 'bcm2708-rpi-b-rev1.dtb', 'bcm2708-rpi-b.dtb', 'bcm2708-rpi-cm.dtb', 'bcm2708-rpi-zero-w.dtb', 'bcm2708-rpi-zero.dtb', 'bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb', 'bcm2710-rpi-2-b.dtb', 'configtxt.bak', 'config.txt', 'bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb', 'bcm2710-rpi-cm3.dtb', 'bcm2711-rpi-4-b.dtb', 'cmdline.txt', 'bcm2711-rpi-400.dtb', 'bcm2711-rpi-cm4.dtb', 'COPYING.linux', 'start.elf', 'start_cd.elf', 'start_db.elf', 'start_x.elf', 'fixup.dat', 'fixup_cd.dat', 'fixup_db.dat', 'fixup_x.dat', 'bootcode.bin', 'start4.elf', 'start4cd.elf', 'start4db.elf', 'start4x.elf', 'fixup4.dat', 'fixup4cd.dat', 'fixup4db.dat', 'fixup4x.dat', 'LICENCE.broadcom']
ESP32 found and in idle mode
Firmware vers. bytearray(b'1.2.2\x00')
MAC addr: ['0x8', '0x8e', '0x88', '0x1c', '0x52', '0x10']
Connecting to AP...
Connected to OpenWrt-secret 	RSSI: -59
My IP address is 10.0.3.112
0
{'time': {'updated': 'Dec 1, 2021 21:30:00 UTC', 'updatedISO': '2021-12-01T21:30:00+00:00', 'updateduk': 'Dec 1, 2021 at 21:30 GMT'}, 'disclaimer': 'This data was produced from the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (USD). Non-USD currency data converted using hourly conversion rate from openexchangerates.org', 'bpi': {'USD': {'code': 'USD', 'description': 'United States Dollar', 'rate_float': 56577.6, 'rate': '56,577.6017'}}}
Done!

Code done running.

Would it help if I provided my code file? It looks practically same as yours. I can also try to record a video of it working and not working.

Is there any diagnostics I can try on my end? I tried adding debug=True to the esp32 ctor, but really didn't add much value...

[jepler]

If you can, please test with a different SD card too.

@jepler Different SD Card didnt make a difference. I copied your code from above, still gave the same output:

code.py output:
ESP32 SPI webclient test
Attempting to mount sd card
['logs', 'overlays', 'prj', '9.0.3.gz', 'arcade.cfg', 'bcm2708-rpi-0-w.dtb', 'bcm2708-rpi-b.dtb', 'bcm2708-rpi-b-plus.dtb', 'bcm2708-rpi-cm.dtb', 'bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb', 'bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb', 'bcm2710-rpi-cm3.dtb', 'bootcode.bin', 'cmdline.txt', 'cmdline3.txt', 'config.txt', 'COPYING.linux', 'fixup.dat', 'kernel4922.img', 'LICENCE.broadcom', 'README', 'RELEASE', 'start.elf']
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "code.py", line 52, in <module>
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 335, in status
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 325, in _send_command_get_response
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 292, in _wait_response_cmd
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 271, in _wait_spi_char
RuntimeError: Timed out waiting for SPI char

Code done running.

Pop out the SD Card, it works...

code.py output:
ESP32 SPI webclient test
Attempting to mount sd card
no sd card: no SD card
continuing
ESP32 found and in idle mode
Firmware vers. bytearray(b'1.2.2\x00')
MAC addr: ['0x6c', '0xd5', '0xb8', '0x57', '0xdd', '0xc4']
Connecting to AP...
could not connect to AP, retrying:  ('No such ssid', b'NuWave')
Connected to NuWave     RSSI: -40
My IP address is 192.168.1.160
0
{'time': {'updated': 'Dec 2, 2021 14:00:00 UTC', 'updatedISO': '2021-12-02T14:00:00+00:00', 'updateduk': 'Dec 2, 2021 at 14:00 GMT'}, 'disclaimer': 'This data was produced from the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (USD). Non-USD currency data converted using hourly conversion rate from openexchangerates.org', 'bpi': {'USD': {'code': 'USD', 'description': 'United States Dollar', 'rate_float': 56509.5, 'rate': '56,509.4750'}}}
Done!

Code done running.

[jerryneedell]

I am trying to reproduce this, I have a pygamer with an airlift featherwing,
So far, ping @jepler code with the SDCard on SD_CS the Airlift works fine with or with out the card inserted BUT it is so far, unable to detect any SDCards..... still investigating

[jerryneedell]

After trying several different SDCards, I found one that works and it works OK with the airlift

Adafruit CircuitPython 7.1.0-beta.1-19-gb83e09858-dirty on 2021-12-02; Adafruit PyGamer with samd51j19
>>> 
>>> import sdtest
ESP32 SPI webclient test
Attempting to mount sd card
['lib', 'hello.py', '.Trash-1000', '.Spotlight-V100', '.fseventsd', '.Trashes', 'swfolog.txt', 'swfoplayback.txt']
ESP32 found and in idle mode
Firmware vers. bytearray(b'1.7.1\x00')
MAC addr: ['0xa8', '0x44', '0x57', '0x12', '0xcf', '0xa4']
Connecting to AP...
Connected to Needell Airport    RSSI: -75
My IP address is 10.0.0.139
0
{'time': {'updated': 'Dec 2, 2021 14:51:00 UTC', 'updatedISO': '2021-12-02T14:51:00+00:00', 'updateduk': 'Dec 2, 2021 at 14:51 GMT'}, 'disclaimer': 'This data was produced from the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (USD). Non-USD currency data converted using hourly conversion rate from openexchangerates.org', 'bpi': {'USD': {'code': 'USD', 'description': 'United States Dollar', 'rate_float': 57105.3, 'rate': '57,105.2617'}}}
Done!
>>> 

Note, the "dirty" build is not relevant to this test - i have some changes to unrelated code that I am testing, This was built from the tip of main this morning.

[jerryneedell]

I am unable to read many of my SDCards on this PyGamer... So far only the one works
It is an 8Gbyte card -- not sure of the mauna. just says Micro Sd Ultimate 3.0 70MB/Sec

but to the original issue, the airlift works with it in or out.....

[jerryneedell]

hmmm -- if I switch to using the Adafruti_CircuitPythom_SD (adafruit_sdcard) library, I can read all of my SDCards.

Adafruit CircuitPython 7.1.0-beta.1-19-gb83e09858-dirty on 2021-12-02; Adafruit PyGamer with samd51j19
>>> 
>>> import sdtest
ESP32 SPI webclient test
Attempting to mount sd card
['sdtest.xxx', 'test.txt', 'sdfile.txt', 'temp_log.txt', 'DATALOG.TXT', 'lib', '.Trash-1000', 'cave', 'font5x8.bin', 'stmpe610_nrf52.py', 'paint_nrf52.py', 'bitmapfont.mpy']
ESP32 found and in idle mode
Firmware vers. bytearray(b'1.7.1\x00')
MAC addr: ['0xa8', '0x44', '0x57', '0x12', '0xcf', '0xa4']
Connecting to AP...
Connected to Needell Airport    RSSI: -74
My IP address is 10.0.0.139
0
{'time': {'updated': 'Dec 2, 2021 15:22:00 UTC', 'updatedISO': '2021-12-02T15:22:00+00:00', 'updateduk': 'Dec 2, 2021 at 15:22 GMT'}, 'disclaimer': 'This data was produced from the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (USD). Non-USD currency data converted using hourly conversion rate from openexchangerates.org', 'bpi': {'USD': {'code': 'USD', 'description': 'United States Dollar', 'rate_float': 56544.1, 'rate': '56,544.0700'}}}
Done!
>>> 

here is the code

# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

import os
import time

from adafruit_esp32spi import adafruit_esp32spi
from digitalio import DigitalInOut
import adafruit_esp32spi.adafruit_esp32spi_socket as socket
import adafruit_requests as requests
import board
import busio
import adafruit_sdcard
import storage

# Get wifi details and more from a secrets.py file
try:
    from secrets import secrets
except ImportError:
    print("WiFi secrets are kept in secrets.py, please add them there!")
    raise

print("ESP32 SPI webclient test")

JSON_URL = "http://api.coindesk.com/v1/bpi/currentprice/USD.json"



# If you have an AirLift Featherwing or ItsyBitsy Airlift:
esp32_cs = DigitalInOut(board.D13)
esp32_ready = DigitalInOut(board.D11)
esp32_reset = DigitalInOut(board.D12)

# Adalogger Featherwing
sd_cs = DigitalInOut(board.SD_CS)

spi = board.SPI()
# SD card must be initialized before AirLift
try:
    print("Attempting to mount sd card")
    sdcard = adafruit_sdcard.SDCard(spi, sd_cs) 
    vfs = storage.VfsFat(sdcard)
    storage.mount(vfs, '/sd')  
    print(os.listdir("/sd"))
except Exception as e:
    print("no sd card:", e)
    print("continuing")

esp = adafruit_esp32spi.ESP_SPIcontrol(spi, esp32_cs, esp32_ready, esp32_reset)
requests.set_socket(socket, esp)
    
if esp.status == adafruit_esp32spi.WL_IDLE_STATUS:
    print("ESP32 found and in idle mode")
print("Firmware vers.", esp.firmware_version)
print("MAC addr:", [hex(i) for i in esp.MAC_address])
    
print("Connecting to AP...")
while not esp.is_connected:
    try:
        esp.connect_AP(secrets["ssid"], secrets["password"])
    except RuntimeError as e:
        print("could not connect to AP, retrying: ", e)
        continue
print("Connected to", str(esp.ssid, "utf-8"), "\tRSSI:", esp.rssi)
print("My IP address is", esp.pretty_ip(esp.ip_address))
    
for i in range(1):
    print(i) 
    r = requests.get(JSON_URL)
    data = r.json()
    print (data)
    r.close() 
        
print("Done!")

also remember to put adafruit_sdcard on the PyGamer

[jepler]

adafruit_sdcard defaults to 1_320_000 as the SPI clock while sdcardio uses 8_000_000. You can try changing the frequency. (baudrate= in the constructor)

if I do this:
sdcard = sdcardio.SDCard(spi, sd_cs, baudrate=1320000)
I get no sd card, and still the ESP32 errors...

gonna see if i can try the adafruit_sdcard lib...

same result with using example from @jerryneedell and adding adafruit_sdcard.py to the board:

code.py output:
ESP32 SPI webclient test
Attempting to mount sd card
no sd card: no SD card
continuing
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "code.py", line 51, in <module>
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 335, in status
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 325, in _send_command_get_response
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 292, in _wait_response_cmd
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 271, in _wait_spi_char
RuntimeError: Timed out waiting for SPI char

tried it again with going back to original SD Card...

code.py output:
ESP32 SPI webclient test
Attempting to mount sd card
['kit']
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "code.py", line 51, in <module>
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 335, in status
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 325, in _send_command_get_response
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 293, in _wait_response_cmd
  File "adafruit_esp32spi/adafruit_esp32spi.py", line 277, in _check_data
RuntimeError: Expected A0 but got 80

Code done running.