I'd be interested to know what it reports (since it also checks baud rate). It might be that the new firmware uses a different baud rate and that's your problem?
Espruino is a JavaScript interpreter for low-power Microcontrollers. This site is both a support community for Espruino and a place to share what you are working on.
Wow, that's new - I didn't know there was a 1.3 version!
Did you run the 'version checker'? http://www.espruino.com/ESP8266
I'd be interested to know what it reports (since it also checks baud rate). It might be that the new firmware uses a different baud rate and that's your problem?