I am using a VESC 6 MK V from Trampaboards while following the build guidelines given by the F1Tenth competition procedures on Ubuntu 20.04. However, these instructions are seemingly out of date and I had no way to interface with servos, previously done by servoout.bin in the firmware configuration. After looking at multiple versions of the tool (2.03, 2.06, and 3.0) I still could not find a pre-made solution. I then came across this forum post which outlined the method of making a new .bin instance. I followed the instructions exactly, uploaded the resulting firmware, and now my VESC will not be recognized over USB in any of the tools on either windows 10 or Ubuntu 20.04. I only changed the servo out value and checked to ensure the firmware version was correct.
On the board the red light flashes intermittently, with the orange light flashing right before it. I have been unable to connect to the Vesc Tool's terminal to identify faults.
I assume the vesc may be bricked, though I would like confirmation of that. Additionally, if anyone has a better procedure for applying the servo firmware please let me know. On 20.04 especially it is a hassle, since you also have to use a workaround for gcc-arm-embedded when building from source.
Most likely you compiled the firmware with a too new compiler, which causes a boot loop. That is a known problem, and I will look into it when I have time. To fix it you need to upload the firmware using SWD. There are many cheap STLink V2s that can do that. You can also use a different VESC from VESC Tool as an SWD-programmer.
If you want to compile the firmware from Ubuntu, I wrote some brief instructions here:
https://github.com/vedderb/bldc/issues/233