I successfully flashed the esp32cam after a big big boss battle.

The thing just would not listen or connect or talk.
At the end I gave up, tested it with a multimeter. All evidence pointed towards a defective board.
The thing just wouldn’t communicate! not even over baud 74880, not even garbage characters!- thats usually a dead board.

I tried flashing it like 20 times since yesterday I think. Same cycle.
Upload code, compiling, connecting –> PRESS RST, hope something happens, fail.

I even sent the supplier an email saying I got a defective piece.

The thing is, you gotta flash this board by pressing the “reset RST” button when the arduino ide says “connecting…..”; which obv. did not work for me.

So i give up and get bored and watch a random yt video. in that video, the guy doesnt press the RST button, nope. what he does is yanks out the cable connecting GPIO0 to GND (you gotta wire em to make the board go into flashing mode).
and it worked for him.

I try it.
EUREKA. it goshdarn works.
like holy crap dude, how. wth!!!
i am so goshdarn happy right now that the thing works.