20x4 SerLCD, Qwiic and ESP32 not doing anything?

Components & Accessories Displays
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Obligatory I’m completely new to arduino stuff so apologies if this has an easy answer. I’m building up to a ZED-F9P base station, but to start I just want to get the LCD screen to work

I have the ESP32 connected to computer via USB-C, and the 20x4 SerLCD connected to the ESP32 via Qwiic, and I’m connected to the board in Arduino IDE 2.1.0 on COM5. Extremely straightforward.

The problem is, no matter what example sketch I upload from the SerLCD library, the screen doesn’t do anything. For example, I hold down the boot button on the ESP32, upload the HelloWorld example, release the button once the data is uploaded and the output monitor says “Leaving… Hard resetting via RTS pin…”… The screen gives its splash for about half a second (SparkFun OpenLCD Baud:9600 v1.40), and then it just goes blank. No hello world, no timer, nothing. The white backlight is on.

If I look at the serial monitor on baud 9600, nothing shows up unless I press the pwr button on the ESP, and then it just gives gibberish.

Any advice?

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Well this is interesting and maybe a bit silly. I 100% did buy the Sparkfun Thing Plus and was trying to flash the board with that chosen in Arduino IDE, but as a shot in the dark I switched it to the ESP32-WROOM-DA board… now it all works.

Odd but hey I won’t complain…maybe something Sparkfun should be aware of?