Does gpio_reset_pin() not work?

Weird issue, no idea what the cause is (and I'm not really familiar with pio and what they do). I'd expect a breakpoint to have some effect - either hitting gdbstub or panicing. Can you see what happens if you put a 'asm volatile("break 1,15");' somewhere in your code; does it panic or hit the ...

No ROM function exists, but you can get into download mode from firmware by setting the LP_AON_FORCE_DOWNLOAD_BOOT reglster, then restarting the ESP.

Well, the thing is that an ESP32 does not have internal flash (even the ones with the flash in-package still have it as a separate die), so reading out the flash is always an option; that is why flash encryption (and secureboot) is so important. The thing with mandatory erase with the encrypted ...

Odd. I see no obvious issues in what you describe. Perhaps it's a connectivity issue - can you try a different GPIO or devboard?

Seemingly Tools -> Upload speed in the Arduino environment.

On your immediate problem - does the ESP32 boot after you manually reset it by pressing the reset button?

On the larger problem So the issue is that if you want to run on batteries without having to charge or replace your batteries every day, you need something that on average uses very little ...

Can you tell us a bit more on what you want to use this for? I'm having a very hard time imagining a scenario where this would make sense.

That is quaint, I've never seen it stop at that point. Perhaps use a lower baud rate, or a different USB-serial device.

Moved ESP32-S31 -> Hardware

Reverse VCC/GND can certainly mess a module up permanently. If you had that and the module still gets uncomfortably hot even when you connect power properly, I'd assume it died.

No idea about your TFT. If you have an oscilloscope, you could try probing the pins, see if ...