FAQ

FAQ and Troubleshooting

Setup

No serial port shows up in the browser flasher. Chrome or Edge only (WebSerial). Try another USB cable, many are charge-only. On rare systems the CH343 driver needs installing. Also close anything else that might hold the port (a serial monitor, another flasher tab).

The device does not see my Wi-Fi. The ESP32-S3 is 2.4 GHz only. If your router runs a combined 2.4+5 GHz network with band steering, it usually still works; if not, expose a separate 2.4 GHz SSID. The status line under the network list distinguishes "network not found" from "check the password".

The location is wrong. IP geolocation is only as good as your provider's records. Type your city in Settings > Location > City search, or an airport code (ICAO/IATA), or coordinates by hand. See Getting Started.

esp32flight.local does not open. Some networks block mDNS. Find the device IP in Settings > Network on the touchscreen and open http://<ip> instead.

Traffic

No aircraft, or far fewer than flightradar24 shows. Check your filters first: Hide ground, Airline only, altitude band, class filter and the airport filter all trim the list, and the radius might be small. The community ADS-B networks also cover less than FR24 in some regions (no MLAT-only, no satellite); a local receiver gives you everything your own antenna hears.

A flight shows no route or the wrong route. Routes come from community databases keyed by callsign, cross-checked against the aircraft's actual position; entries that fail the position check are hidden rather than shown wrong. Charter, cargo, ferry and military flights often have no entry anywhere. A FlightAware key adds live flight plans, which fixes most gaps.

An airline logo is missing or a type looks wrong. Logos exist for ~1300 airlines; small operators may not have one. Wrong type codes usually come from the upstream aircraft database and are worth reporting there (the data sources are listed in the README).

What is that slow blip climbing at 5 kt? Probably a weather balloon, if you have the SondeHub layer on. Check the callsign against sondehub.org.

Device

The screen shows a scrambled picture after flashing. Wrong build for the board, most likely the 800x480 binary on a 7B (1024x600). Flash the file for your exact board from the flasher page; since 0.4.3 the buttons and OTA both guard against this.

My settings disappeared after an update. Use the browser flasher with Erase device unchecked, or OTA, and settings survive. A manual -full.bin flash at 0x0 overwrites the settings region. Back up before manual flashes.

The device restarts every few hours. Update: a screensaver-related crash with exactly this signature was fixed in 0.4.3. If you still see restarts on the current version, open an issue with your board and the log from /api/log.

Rendering feels less smooth on the 7B. Known: 1024x600 pushes 60% more pixels through the same chip. Optimizations are planned.

Can I run it in portrait? No, the UI is designed for landscape 800x480 and up.

Data and privacy

What does the device send out? Only requests to the public data APIs (aircraft positions, routes, weather, tiles) and whatever integrations you configure. No telemetry, no accounts, no tracking. The Android app has the same policy (privacy statement).

Does it need port forwarding or cloud anything? No. Everything is outbound HTTPS from your network. The web panel is LAN-only unless you deliberately expose it (set a panel password if you do).

Still stuck?

• Search the issues, someone may have hit it before
• Ask on Discord
• Open a new issue with your board, firmware version (Settings > System shows it) and a screenshot; /screen.bmp makes that easy