Fatal error when trying to flash

[blymi]

I am really struggling to get a working ESP32. I tried an ESP32-S3 and gave up - it wrote to flash OK but just seems to stuck in a loop when booting.
So I purposely bought an ESP-WRoom-32 - the exact model recommend. Using the same computer - Mac M1 - I cannot even get it to write to flash, with esptool commands provided. I get a fatal error. I have tried dev snapshot too, same error.
Hope someone can help, please!

Please note: when I flash the ESP32-S3 there are no errors, it completed the whole process fine - and the hard reset only runs at the end - successfully. Any attempt to flash the ESP32-WRoom-32 fails.
The key difference seems to be after 'Changed' - the ESP32-WRoom-32 then says 'Hard resetting via RTS pin', but that doesn't seem right. The ESP32-S3 doesn't do that - it goes to 'Configuring flash size...', then flashes fully.

Here's my command line in full for the WRoom-32:

esptool.py --chip esp32 --baud 921600 --before default_reset --after hard_reset write_flash
0x1000 bootloader.bin
0x8000 partitions.bin
0xe000 boot_app0.bin
0x10000 firmware.bin

Warning: DEPRECATED: 'esptool.py' is deprecated. Please use 'esptool' instead. The '.py' suffix will be removed in a future major release.
Warning: Deprecated: Choice 'default_reset' for option '--before' is deprecated. Use 'default-reset' instead.
Warning: Deprecated: Choice 'hard_reset' for option '--after' is deprecated. Use 'hard-reset' instead.
Warning: Deprecated: Command 'write_flash' is deprecated. Use 'write-flash' instead.
esptool v5.2.0
Connected to ESP32 on /dev/cu.usbserial-5C3E1686691:
Chip type: ESP32-D0WD-V3 (revision v3.1)
Features: Wi-Fi, BT, Dual Core + LP Core, 240MHz, Vref calibration in eFuse, Coding Scheme None
Crystal frequency: 40MHz
MAC: 8c:94:df:8f:91:70

Stub flasher running.
Changing baud rate to 921600...
Changed.

Hard resetting via RTS pin...
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/init.py", line 1187, in _main
main()
~~~~^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/init.py", line 1081, in main
cli(args=args, esp=esp)
~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/cli_util.py", line 345, in call
return super().call(*args, **kwargs)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/rich_click/rich_command.py", line 402, in call
return super().call(*args, **kwargs)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1485, in call
return self.main(*args, **kwargs)
~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/rich_click/rich_command.py", line 216, in main
rv = self.invoke(ctx)
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1873, in invoke
return _process_result(sub_ctx.command.invoke(sub_ctx))
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1269, in invoke
return ctx.invoke(self.callback, **ctx.params)
~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/click/core.py", line 824, in invoke
return callback(*args, **kwargs)
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/click/decorators.py", line 34, in new_func
return f(get_current_context(), *args, **kwargs)
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/init.py", line 737, in write_flash_cli
attach_flash(ctx.obj["esp"], kwargs.pop("spi_connection", None))
~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/cmds.py", line 1425, in attach_flash
flash_id = esp.flash_id()
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/loader.py", line 1070, in flash_id
self.cache["flash_id"] = self.run_spiflash_command(SPIFLASH_RDID, b"", 24)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/loader.py", line 1640, in run_spiflash_command
old_spi_usr = self.read_reg(SPI_USR_REG)
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/loader.py", line 901, in read_reg
return self.check_command(
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^
"read target memory", self.ESP_CMDS["READ_REG"], command, timeout=timeout
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
)
^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/loader.py", line 565, in check_command
val, data = self.command(op, data, chk, timeout=timeout)
~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/loader.py", line 495, in command
p = self.read()
File "/usr/local/Cellar/esptool/5.2.0_1/libexec/lib/python3.14/site-packages/esptool/loader.py", line 431, in read
return next(self._slip_reader)
StopIteration

A fatal error occurred: The chip stopped responding.

[blymi]

I found the problem. First I tried changing to no stub mode, but that returned a slightly different error. Then I reduced the baud rate - and it completed and worked. So, pretty sure it was that the baud rate was too high for the device. Hope this helps others.