Hey, we (F4MLV + Christian IW0EFI) spent the last few weeks getting the CrowPanel P4 5-inch variant to actually boot on real hardware. Here's what we found:

Board definition: crowpanel-p4 uses a pre-compiled bootloader linked at 0x4FFAC2C0 which crashes with Illegal Instruction on P4 eco2. Switching to board = esp32-p4-evboard uses a bootloader linked at 0x4FF29ED0 which works. The correct QIO bootloader lives in esp32p4_es/bin/bootloader_qio_80m.elf.

Device-UI dependency: must point to the elecrow-p4 branch, not master. Otherwise LGFX_ELECROW_P4_50.h is missing.

LVGL/LovyanGFX conflict: both define the same types. Workaround: a pre-build Python script that patches the device-ui LGFX header to include LVGL before LovyanGFX, and removes LovyanGFX's internal LVGL font files (v7/v8 format incompatible with LVGL v9).

Flash mode: must be QIO (not DIO). The bootloader header and firmware header both need flash_mode=QIO.

ROM data incompatibility: if bootloader and firmware use different IDF versions, rom_spiflash_legacy_data is placed at different addresses, causing null pointer dereferences in flash init. We added a rom_compat.c that stubs bootloader_flash_update_id()/bootloader_flash_update_size() and provides a fallback rom_spiflash_legacy_data symbol.

PlatformIO Core: must be >= 6.1.19 for ESP32-P4 support.

Flash addresses: bootloader at 0x2000 (not 0x0 — standard P4 offset).

The firmware now boots with working touchscreen, Bluetooth, and LoRa. Tested on CrowPanel Advanced 5" ESP32-P4 (eco2, GD25Q128 flash, ESP32-C6-MINI-1 co-processor).

Full changes at: https://github.com/moricef/meshtastic_crowpanel_p4/tree/crowpanel-p4

Hoping this helps get the PR ready for merge. Happy to provide more details if needed.

— Fabrice F4MLV

LVGL/LovyanGFX conflict: both define the same types. Workaround: a pre-build Python script that patches the device-ui LGFX header to include LVGL before LovyanGFX, and removes LovyanGFX's internal LVGL font files (v7/v8 format incompatible with LVGL v9).

This was an issue in lovyanGFX 1.2.20 and has been fixed in 1.2.21

PlatformIO Core: must be >= 6.1.19 for ESP32-P4 support.

We're using the pioarduino toolchain (which is a fork of platformio)

Board definition: crowpanel-p4 uses a pre-compiled bootloader linked at 0x4FFAC2C0 which crashes with Illegal Instruction on P4 eco2. Switching to board = esp32-p4-evboard uses a bootloader linked at 0x4FF29ED0 which works. The correct QIO bootloader lives in esp32p4_es/bin/bootloader_qio_80m.elf.

crowpanel-p4.json should work with pioarduino toolchain. There is also the qio definition. In future we want to switch to a 120MHz bootloader.

@copilot resolve the merge conflicts in this pull request

@copilot resolve the merge conflicts in this pull request

Resolved the merge conflicts and merged origin/develop into this branch in commit 94619389b.

@copilot resolve the merge conflicts in this pull request

@copilot resolve the merge conflicts in this pull request

Resolved and committed the merge conflicts by merging origin/develop into this branch in commit 30f9c8c.