Hello, I uninstalled a working copy of Arduino IDE (1.8.18) and all copy's of Python interpreter...then reinstalled Arduino IDE 1.8.19 and Python 3.13. (Dell XPS 8500, Windows 8.1)
NOW...When I invoke the IDE, I get an error message popup "Python has stopped working" further details show it is referring to Python3.exe.
After a few seconds, the Arduino IDE comes up as normal...but when I compile any sketch, I get the error "
Current thread 0x0000175c (most recent call first):
exit status -1073740791
Error compiling for board Raspberry Pi Pico."
Any suggestions on how to get back on track with the IDE?
Thanks.
I'm going to ask you to provide the full output from a compilation.
This procedure is not intended to solve the problem. The purpose is to gather more information.
Please do this:
Select File > Preferences... (or Arduino > Settings... for macOS users) from the Arduino IDE menus.
The "Preferences" dialog will open.
Uncheck the box next to "Show verbose output during: > ☑ compilation" in the "Preferences" dialog.
Click the "OK" button.
The "Preferences" dialog will close.
Select Sketch > Verify/Compile from the Arduino IDE menus.
After the compilation fails you'll see a button on the right side of the orange bar in Arduino IDE: Copy error messages. Click that button.
Open a forum reply here by clicking the "Reply" button.
Click the <CODE/> icon on the post composer toolbar.
This will add the forum's code block markup (```) to your reply to make sure the error messages are correctly formatted.
Press the Ctrl+V keyboard shortcut (Command+V for macOS users).
This will paste the compilation output into the code block.
Move the cursor outside of the code block markup before you add any additional text to your reply.
Click the "Reply" button to post the output.
In case the output is longer than the forum software will allow to be added to a post, you can instead save it to a .txt file and then attach that file to a reply here.
Select the .txt file you saved from the "Open" dialog.
Click the "Open" button.
The dialog will close.
Click the "Reply" button to publish the post.
Alternatively, instead of using the "Upload" icon on the post composer toolbar as described in steps (5) - (7) above, you can simply drag and drop the .txt file onto the post composer field to attach it.
Although Windows 10 has been specified as the minimum officially supported version from the start of the Arduino IDE 2.x version series, earlier versions did have incidental compatibility with Windows 7 through 8.1. That compatibility was lost starting from Arduino IDE 2.2.0, so Arduino IDE 2.1.1 is the last version compatible with those obsolete Windows versions.
I don't have any specific reason to think that using Arduino IDE 2.x will be a workaround to the specific problem you are experiencing when using the 3rd party "Raspberry Pi Pico/RP2040" boards platform from Earle F. Philhower, III, but in case you want to give it a try I'll provide instructions you can follow to install and configure Arduino IDE 2.1.1:
From the list of download links under the "Assets" section of the page, click the link with the name:
If you want the installer package: arduino-ide_2.1.1_Windows_64bit.exe
If you want the "MSI" package: arduino-ide_2.1.1_Windows_64bit.msi
If you want the "ZIP" package: arduino-ide_2.1.1_Windows_64bit.zip
ⓘ If you aren't sure which one you need, use arduino-ide_2.1.1_Windows_64bit.exe
Wait for the download to finish.
Install Arduino IDE from the downloaded file as you would normally do.
Install Compatible Serial Monitor Tool
The Serial Monitor feature of Arduino IDE 2.x is only a graphical user interface. The actual communication with the Arduino board via the computer's serial port is handled by a helper tool named "serial-monitor".
Arduino IDE automatically installs the newest available version of serial-monitor.
The latest versions of this tool (0.14.0 and higher) are incompatible with Windows 7 (I haven't checked Windows 8.1). This will cause the Arduino IDE 2.1.1 Serial Monitor to show a "Port monitor error: EOF" error.
The workaround is to manually install the last compatible version of serial-monitor. I'll provide instructions you can follow to do that:
Select File > Quit from the Arduino IDE menus if it is running.
All Arduino IDE windows will close.
Create a folder named 999.999.999 under the following path on your hard drive:
If looking for it with your file manager or command line, note that the AppData folder is hidden by default. On Windows "File Explorer", you can make it visible by opening the "View" menu, then checking the box next to "☐ Hidden items".
ⓘ The reason for using the folder name 999.999.999 is to trick Arduino IDE into thinking this is always the newest available version of serial-monitor so that it will be used in favor of the incompatible versions of the tool.
Click the "serial-monitor_v0.13.0_Windows_64bit.zip" link you will see under the "Assets" section of that page.
A download of the ZIP file of the serial-monitor tool will start.
You will now find that Arduino IDE periodically shows an "Update Available" dialog to offer you an update to the newer version of Arduino IDE. You must not accept these updates since the newer versions are not compatible with your vintage version of Windows.
There are two methods for dealing with these update offers. I'll provide instructions for both of them. You can pick whichever one of the two is most convenient for you.
"SKIP VERSION"
The "Update Available" dialog contains a "SKIP VERSION" button. If you click that button, Arduino IDE will no longer show the dialog for the specific newer version being offered at the time you click the button.
The dialog will appear once again each time Arduino releases a new version of Arduino IDE, so you will need to click the button again after each release. That is slightly inconvenient, but the release cycle is fairly long so I don't think it will be very burdensome.
Disable All Update Offers
It is possible to completely disable the offers of updates in the Arduino IDE advanced settings. The downside is this setting also disables offers of updates for your installed boards platforms and libraries.
Press the Ctrl+Shift+P keyboard shortcut (Command+Shift+P for macOS users) to open the "Command Palette".
A menu will appear on the editor toolbar:
Select the "Preferences: Open Settings (UI)" command from the menu. ⓘ You can scroll down through the list of commands to find it or type the name in the field.
A "Preferences" tab will open in the Arduino IDE main panel.
Type arduino.checkForUpdates in the "Search Settings" field of the "Preferences" tab.
Uncheck the box under the "Arduino: Check For Updates" setting.
Close the Preferences tab by clicking its X icon.
Keeping Your Arduino Dependencies Updated
If you chose this "Disable All Update Offers" method, make sure to periodically check to see if newer versions of your installed boards platforms and libraries are available. You can do this by opening Boards Manager and then setting the "Type" menu to "Updatable", then repeating the process with Library Manager.
There is no possibility of a problem using newer versions of libraries on a computer with an older version of Windows, so don't worry about a Windows incompatibility when updating your libraries.
It is theoretically possible that some future version of a boards platform could have a minimum Windows version requirement, but I'm not aware of any such thing at this time. Even if you did encounter that a boards platform stopped working after an update, you can always easily downgrade the platform back to the last working version via the Arduino IDE Boards Manager.
Thanks, I looked into it...there are no python links in my user or system environments...I'll experiment a bit more with adding the Python 3.13 paths in the environment tomorrow.
Thanks for the help.
OK, FYI.
I found the original problem with loading python was fixed by adding the PYTHONPATH and PYTHONHOME to system environment...the IDE loaded without the "Python failed" error...however, the basic "blink" sketch did not compile/verify...
So, I uninstalled Ardunio IDE 1.8.19, and installed the IDE 2.1.1, no "python" errors but the sketch still failed to compile returned an error: "Fatal Python error: initfsencoding: unable to load the file system codec ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'encodings'"
I then uninstalled the "Raspberry Pi Pico by Earle F Philhower"...reinstalled it...and all worked well. The sketch "blink" in IDE 2.1.1 compiled, uploaded and ran in the pico.
I am not thrilled about using IDE 2.1.1 on a Windows 8.1 machine...but I'll take the momentary win.
This procedure is not intended to solve the problem. The purpose is to gather more information.
) on the post composer toolbar:
