Hi, I am trying out Visual Micro for ESP32-CAM, currently plugged in MB programmer, via USB on COM5 to my PC. I installed Visual Studio 2022 and Visual Micro version . My goal is to get OTA working.

However, I've got 2 major issues:
1) Compile time is very long, around 25-30 seconds, even if nothing has changed in the code. I enabled Verbose logs, and it seems most of the time is spent in "Deep search for libraries" and "Building core", but the rest is also pretty slow. By comparison, Arduino IDE compiles the same sketch in ~5 seconds. 
2) I attempted OTA example from here, and the initial compile and upload via COM5 works fine, Serial Monitor shows:

Port open
VMDPR_Booting
Ready
IP address: 192.168.1.242

...but trying to upload it via IP does not, it results in "Error Uploading: [WinError 10054] An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host".

I have installed Bonjourn service, Visual Micro is able to detect ESP32 IP as per the tutorial. Firewall ports are open, no antivirus running. I am not using boards.txt since I don't have the Pro version yet.

Attaching output from slow compile and failed OTA upload with time stamps, Show Build Properties and Verbose enabled. Also, below is a screenshot of my settings. Please note that Wifi SSID and password have been purposefully redacted from the output.txt 

Tim, thank you for a very fast reply.

1) I switched to Release, and I'm not sure if it helped, but it appears that with some compilations when output says "Using previously compiled variant" and "Using previous search results", it completes in several seconds, but other times (even though I didn't change the code) it starts searching again, and that takes a very long time. But last 10 compiles or so were the fast ones, so perhaps it just needed multiple attempts to finally realize it already has all the libraries 

2) Image of the serial ports/ips:



Please note that the auto-discovered ip sometimes appears, sometimes don't. For example, if I restart VS, it does not appear. If I reboot ESP32, it doesn't appear either. But if I re-upload the code via COM5, then it appears most of the time, but not always. Not sure how to manually do a "refresh" for that auto-discovery.

As for password, you mean "ArduinoOTA.setPassword"? If so, then no, I did not set it, as I understand it is optional? Nevertheless, I tried enabling it (uncommenting that line), and upon upload start it does ask me to enter that password, but finally fails with the same error as before.

3) Ok, verbose enabled. I am attaching the output, and also the sketch I am trying to upload via COM5 and then via IP. SSID and password redacted, but otherwise no changes.

Simon, thank you very much! What you suggested is kind of obvious, but I completely missed it 

Another quick question: can OTA work with ESP32 in station mode? Meaning I wouldn't need a router, but the ESP would act as a router itself, so I can connect to it from my laptop and upload the code?

Thank you, I'll try that. Last question: in OTA upload mode, how do I use Serial.print to get debugging info out of my code during runtime? I get that as the name implies, Serial is meant to send messages over serial connection rather that WiFi, so is there anything I can use instead to get these messages to Output window or something else that is inside Visual Studio? I've google this, and most suggest hosting some webpage with ESP32 or other external applications to view data output during runtime, but I'd really like to stay inside VS for development.

Quote:


The only integrated option currently is to use the Serial Debugger over WiFi, where you can then use the MicroDebug.SendUserMessage() to send messages back to the Serial Monitor window.
https://www.visualmicro.com/page/Over-The-Air-Debugging-in-Visual-Micro.aspx

If you want to have a separate Serial Monitor open which is not the upload Port/IP address, this can be done from the vMIcro > General > Monitor Alternative drop down.