The last 2 weeks I have a problem with the Board manager it freezes on "downloading platform index".
Ide 1.8.19 on both Laptops.
This happens on Win 10 pc and also on Win 11 pc.
Close or Cancel does not work the only way to get out is Pc restart or Shut down.
This below is where the screen stays stuck.
Hi @mikedb. If you select File > Preferences from the Arduino IDE menus (note that you can't do that while the "Boards Manager" dialog is open), do you see anything in the "Additional Boards Manager URLs" field? If so, please provide the full contents of the field in a reply here.
Another question: after the problem happens, when you close the "Boards Manager" dialog, do you see any text in the black output panel at the bottom of the Arduino IDE window?
Please provide the text of the "Additional Boards Manager URLs" preference field content.
Do you want the actual text?
https://github.com/stm32duino/BoardManagerFiles/raw/main/package_stmicroelectronics_index.json
https://mcudude.github.io/MiniCore/package_MCUdude_MiniCore_index.json
https://espressif.github.io/arduino-esp32/package_esp32_index.json
http://drazzy.com/package_drazzy.com_index.json
I can't reproduce the fault on my system, but this one is a bit odd:
Change that line in the "Additional Boards Manager URLs" preference to this:
https://drazzy.com/package_drazzy.com_index.json
then open Boards Manager again. Hopefully it will be able to complete the downloads this time.
I changed the http: to https:
click ok .. close additional Boards Mananger URLs screen.
click ok .. close preference screen.
Open Board manager and screen hangs up.
When I restart my Pc and go back to Preferences the https: changed back to http:
I did this 3 times same result ,must restart my Pc every time.
But:
Ide 2.3.4 opens the Board Manager in a flash without any problems.
Here is one example of the many I used to download the Attiny Core.
The preferences are only saved to disk when you exit Arduino IDE 1.x. So if you changed the preference, hung Boards Manager, and then had to force shut down Arduino IDE, then it is expected that the change you made to the preferences won't be present the next time you start Arduino IDE.
Unlike Arduino IDE 1.x, 2.x does not trigger a download of the package index files when you open Boards Manager. It instead periodically downloads them when you start the IDE, and after you make a change to the "Additional Boards Manager URLs" preference.
Try this:
This will force Arduino IDE to perform an immediate download of the package index files. Do the downloads succeed?
Regardless of what the instructions say, the fact is that the URL http://drazzy.com/package_drazzy.com_index.json redirects to the URL https://drazzy.com/package_drazzy.com_index.json:
$ curl --location --silent --output /dev/null --write-out %{url_effective} http://drazzy.com/package_drazzy.com_index.json
https://drazzy.com/package_drazzy.com_index.json
So the most correct URL to use is the final one: https://drazzy.com/package_drazzy.com_index.json
My hypothesis was that the use of the incorrect URL might have been the cause of the problem. Since you found that the fault still occurs even after changing the URL, this invalidates my hypothesis, but it was worth a try.
Was the IDE the current window when you did this ?
I just removed the above line from Additional boards ... and the Board Mananger screen still hangs.
If I understand correct the ide was open.
I should have made it more clear I was talking about Arduino IDE 2.x.
You must perform those instructions when using Arduino IDE 2.x. The reason they didn't work as I described is because you were using Arduino IDE 1.x.
I did use ide 2.xx this time but I don't see any downloads or any errors or anything changing or happening.
But there is no problem with ide 2.xx only 1.8.19 hangs.
EDIT.
I repeated the prosses with ide 2.xx and saw a "Downloading bla bla ...." something flash on and off the screen , so yes looks like the download works.
Yes, the progress of downloading the package index files is indicated by a notification at the bottom right corner of the Arduino IDE window:
Yeah, if the download never finished, then that "Downloading index: ..." notification would remain visible.
And if if failed, you would see an error notification:
Should I dump ide 1.8.19?
Strange that I started getting problems with 1.8.19 on two different PC'S at the same time , Win10 and Win11.
If you find Arduino IDE 2.x to meet your needs, the I would say absolutely yes. No development or maintenance has been done on Arduino IDE 1.x for years. During that time, a significant number of new features and fixes have been implemented in Arduino IDE 2.x, and this will continue.
It is true that a some community members feel that Arduino IDE 1.x is superior in some way to 2.x. However, this is either due to fairly subjective reasons (e.g., "I don't like Serial Monitor being integrated in the main IDE window"), niche use cases (e.g., "I need 'portable' mode"), or some rare and mysterious incompatibility with their system (e.g., "It takes 10 minutes to compile a simple sketch, even though it only takes 30 seconds using 1.x"). My opinion is that, even if admittedly not perfect, 2.x is easily at least equally as good overall when compared to 1.x (which also has a significant number of defects).
Indeed. Do you have the same URLs in your Arduino IDE 2.x preferences as you have in your 1.x preferences? Arduino IDE 2.x uses a different preferences store than 1.x, so the URLs you added via the 1.x preferences aren't automatically also used by 2.x.
Are you using Arduino IDE 1.x in "portable" mode? I ask because both 1.x and 2.x normally store the downloaded package index files in the same location, but when you have 1.x in portable mode, it will instead store the files under the portable subfolder of the Arduino IDE installation folder. That "portable" location may be more problematic because there are special security restrictions on the C:\Program Files (x86) folder which is a default installation location for Arduino IDE.
No ,there is nothing in IDE 2.xx preferences.
But I tested by compiling a ESP32 Sketch with IDE 2.xx and it compiles without errors.
If I understand correctly , both IDE 1.xx and 2.xx was installed from a downloaded Setup/Application file.
But there was a time a while back that I uninstalled IDE 1.8.15 and extracted the non -install IDE 1.8.19 and used it for a while.
I wanted the same version 1.8.19 on both PC's but could not find the 1.8.19 Install version.
When I found my saved copy of 1.8.19 Install version ,I deleted the non install version and install 1.8.19.
Note:
The Win10 PC does not hang up tonight when I open the Board Manager.
I'm glad the compiling is working, but that is not directly relevant to this discussion. The discussion is about Arduino IDE 1.x hanging when it attempts to download the package index files. If your "Additional Boards Manager URLs" preference is empty, then Arduino IDE only downloads the primary package index (https://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_index.json). So you are not doing an "apples to apples" comparison between the two IDEs because Arduino IDE 1.x is downloading different files than Arduino IDE 2.x is (due to the different configurations of the two IDEs).
It is true that, assuming you already have all the boards platforms you need installed, having those extra URLs in your preferences is not essential when using Arduino IDE 2.x. However, these URLs are necessary in order to get updates when new versions of the platforms are released. So if you don't add those URLs to the Arduino IDE 2.x preferences, then you will forever remain stuck on the versions of the platforms that are currently installed and thus miss out on any enhancements or bug fixes the platform developers make.
That is irrelevant. You put Arduino IDE 1.x into "portable mode" by creating a folder named portable inside the Arduino IDE 1.x installation folder. Look in the folder. If you see a folder there named portable, then Arduino IDE 1.x is in "portable mode". If you don't see a folder there named portable, then Arduino IDE 1.x is not in "portable mode" and it is using the same folder to store the downloaded files as Arduino IDE 2.x does.
