WeACT BlackPill, losing applications files

[davefes]

Several times I have had applications running on various releases of WeACT_F411_BLACKPILL fail. Both on the 8MB flash boards and boards without added flash.

What I find is that even though I remove the files that appear after flashing and load the application files that I want, when these units stop working I find that the original files are there are instead.

I can only guess that the files loaded on from the image are not really deleted and when something fails those files are copied back to /flash

Has anyone seen a lost of the wanted application files on these devices?

Edit:
This happens only after I upload the firmware, make a LFS2 filesystem and put on my application files.

[Josverl]

by default that board uses LFS2 as its filesystem.
It may be that one of the superblocks is not seen as valid, and that an older superblock that may point to old file content is used instead.
files are seldom actually deleted.
possibly : #16115

[davefes]

What gets placed in internal flash? Typing what does full chip erase do in stm32CubeProgrammer? into Google seems to suggest that a lot of stuff gets erased. "Returns to Initial State"

[robert-hh]

Usually the internal Flash is used for the firmware.

[robert-hh]

suggest that a lot of stuff gets erased. "Returns to Initial State"

Internal state of the MCU I suppose.

[scruss]

I definitely agree with Robert here. stm32CubeProgrammer or dfu-util don't know anything about the external 8M flash chip your board has. So it doesn't get erased, and the previous filesystem is retained.

For greater clarity, the reason you're seeing LFS2 in step 13 is because the the external flash filesystem created in step 7 has been retained. If you'd run a hypothetical make_VFAT.py after step 11, you'd get your expected result.

[davefes]

Thanks guys. And I do run make_VFAT.py after this as I don't trust LFS2 on this board.