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I have an OTGW with an ethernet port.
With the OTmonitor of march 2023, I tried to do an upgrade to the version 5.8. But the upgrade stopped after several minutes and several errors.
Now the OTGW does not function correctly anymore. I can do a ping, and the otmonitor seems to connect.

But when trying to send the firmware again, I always receive the message “could not switch gateway to self-programming mode, followed by “Please manually reset the Opentherm gateway”.
I pushed several times on the reset button, even very long + I pulled out the supply + I tried the upgrade via the USB and COM3 ... But nothing helps. Always the same messages

What can I still do?

I don't know how people do it. Whenever I try to break an OTGW to test the recovery procedure, I have to resort to killing OTmonitor or removing power from the OTGW during a firmware upgrade. But even then it always recovers on the first try.

The fact that you can ping and connect otmonitor only means that there is an IP connection between your computer and the USR-TCP232-T2. It tells nothing about the serial connection between the USR-TCP232-T2 and the PIC.

It should be possible to recover the firmware using any connection method; serial, ethernet, or WiFi. Just start a firmware upgrade. Then, when prompted, reset the PIC.

Important points for recovery:

• The PIC needs to be reset using the reset button or reset jumper next to the PIC. Power cycling the OTGW will not work unless the OTGW is connected using a method that does not rely on power from the OTGW. For all other connection methods it takes too long for the connection to be re-established.
• Resetting the PIC must be done within 60 seconds after the “Please manually reset the Opentherm gateway” message.
• Only briefly press the reset button. Don't press the button multiple times. That may actually interrupt the firmware upgrade and make matters worse.

If you tried this multiple times and it definitely doesn't work for you, then you may want to check that the reset button is working. Power down the OTGW and check the resistance between MCLR (pin 4) of the PIC and GND (pin 5). This should be quite high. Then press the reset button. The resistance should drop to (nearly) 0. If that seems fine, then I'm afraid you somehow managed to corrupt the firmware to such a degree that a PIC programmer will be needed.

If you happen to live near het Gooi, I can offer to provide on-site support.

Thanks you for your answer.

The reset button in the middle seems to work. By pushing, the resistance between two pins drops from +/- 100K to 0 ohm. (and for two pins)

10 seconds after the message "please manually reset", I pushed only once on the reset button for about 2 seconds. But the upgrade still does not work.

Yesterday I tried also to flash the firmware. Below the error message I receive.

Info: I turned off the firewall on my Win10. Same error appears with or without the IP cable.

esptool write_flash 0x0 ino.bin 0x200000 littlefs.bin
esptool.py v4.5.1
Found 2 serial ports
Serial port COM3
Connecting......................................
COM3 failed to connect: Failed to connect to Espressif device: No serial data received.
For troubleshooting steps visit: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp ... oting.html
Serial port COM1
COM1 failed to connect: Could not open COM1, the port doesn't exist

A fatal error occurred: Could not connect to an Espressif device on any of the 2 available serial ports.

I'm confused. You said you have an OTGW with an ethernet port. Then where exactly are you expecting to load ESP8266 firmware?

Sorry, I'm probably too new/stupid to understand your answer.
I saw this firmware on the Nodo website "OpenTherm Gateway ESP Firmware". I didn't understood that this is for another product.
But yes, I have an OTGW with an ethernet port. And probably with a 16F88 PIC

Extra info to my latest message, saying that V 5.8 was taking control over the heating setpoint: my thermostat is connected in "relay on/off" to the OTGW

Today, I received the P16F1847 PIC that I ordered at Nodoshop.
I replaced my old (deprogrammed) P16F88 by this newer PIC.
And I could easily install the latest firmware V65 to this new PIC (via OTmonitor - upgrade). It took probably 20-30 seconds.
And it seems I have all the values back that I had with my old P16F88.
So indeed, it seems that the newer P16F1847 is a perfect/better replacement for the older P16F88.