As above, it is not enough to press flash before programming, the ESP is supposed to be running with that button pressed, that is, either holding the flash button connects to the USB, or holding the flash button does a reset.
However, in a working NODE MCU board this is not needed, properly connected transistors to CH340 switch RST and PIN0 so that it boots either in programming mode or normal operation.
Maybe the cable is bad and doesn't connect, sometimes you get a bad new one, they also die over time. I have more and more of these in my junk.
After connecting the USB port, you can open some COM port monitor, set the speed to 74k, press reset and see what it spits out, then the same with the flash button option, the initialisation message should be different. In such a manual setting with the flash buttons you can connect to the RX/TX/GND pins from another USB-UART 3.3V converter and try to upload "sideways".
Helpful post? Buy me a coffee.