For most of the time this appears in the notification pop-up, a sketch will delay getting compliled.
And it takes long enough to compile an ESP32 sketch as it is, going through all the libraries, finding out of there's an alternative.
I definitely do not have an internet connection problem. Even if I did, Arduino should time out rather than just hang.
But I know there isn't an internet connection issue, as i was able to find the URL Arduino was trying to get the file, and it downloaded instantly.
Through means of getting PowerShell trace, what I found is that Arduino IDE is checking for library updates, particularly the ones I am using for my current project, and each library check is taking several seconds. It shouldn't take that long. At the very least have it do so in the background asynchronously from the user's use of the IDE.
When compiling ESP32 code, there too it is checking for library updates, so I am penalized twice with this long delay.
Hello! Version 2.3.2 has a similar problem with "package_esp32_dev_index.json", but this file gets downloaded eventually. However, version 2.3.3 hangs indefinitely at startup trying to download this file. Honestly, there were times when version 2.3.3 started normally and worked perfectly, but when the message "downloading index: package_esp32_index.json" appeared and stayed, all I could do was close and restart Arduino IDE hoping it would go away. So for now I downgraded to 2.3.2. Any ideas?
OK, briefly, this is what I have done and, so far so good, Arduino IDE version 2.3.3 works perfectly. First, I reverted to version 2.3.2 in order to start Arduino IDE (because version 2.3.3 was stuck and unusable). According to the idea of @6v6gt (thank you!) I removed "Arduino ESP32 Boards by Arduino" (2.0.17) and "esp32 by Espressif Systems" (3.1.0-RC1). Then I (re)installed version 2.3.3 and, according to the current project, Arduino IDE asked to install "esp32 by Espressif Systems", which I approved. After closing and restarting, Arduino IDE worked perfectly. I loaded another project which implied an Arduino Nano ESP32 board, and Arduino IDE asked to install "Arduino ESP32 Boards by Arduino", which I also approved. Again, after closing and restarting, Arduino IDE worked perfectly. Even after I restarted the computer, Arduino IDE 2.3.3 kept launching and operating smoothly, as expected.
I have a similar problem with IDE V2.3.3 on Windows. The message is:
Downloading index: package_index.tar.bz2
This message appears every time I start the IDE and the progress bar beneath it reaches about half-way and stops. I do not have any of the ESP32 boards installed, so I cannot follow the advice above to un-install them.
When I try to compile a sketch, I get:
Compiling sketch...
and that process hangs too. The 'cancel' button is effective, and I get 'User abort' in the Output pane.
Hi all. It was found that Arduino IDE 2.3.3 has a bug that causes this to happen when you have Serial Monitor open.
If you encounter it again, the workaround is to close the Serial Monitor view until the index download process is finished. After that, you can open Serial Monitor again.
The Serial Monitor view is a tab in the bottom panel of the Arduino IDE window, so you might not even notice when you have it open. You can close it by clicking the X icon on the tab:
So far this seems to be the nicest workaround for the 2.3.3 problem! It worked for me too. I started Arduino IDE 2.3.3 and the "Downloading etc" message appeared. The "Serial Monitor" was active, so I closed it by clicking its "X" sign, and then the "Downloading etc." message disappeared after some seconds. Just for sure, I closed and reopened Arduino IDE 2.3.3 several times, with and without "Serial Monitor" active, and there were no more "Downloading etc." messages. Congratulations & thank you!
