error opening board manager on new instal

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Ive never had any issues installing Arduino before but I just purchased a newHP Envy core i7 laptop with Win10 and am having issues...
The IDE installs fine but I can not open boards manager without an error:

The error says : Error downloading http://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_index.json

The text that appears in the console is pasted below...
could it be a Java issue? I installed the latest version of 64 bit java after the error occured but that didnt change anything...
I tried adding an exception in the firewall software for the arduino exe file but no change...

BTw the board manager only shows one item installed (ARDUINO AVR BOARDS)

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

Error downloading http://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_index.json
java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.Exception: Error downloading http://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_index.json
at cc.arduino.contributions.packages.ui.ContributionManagerUI.lambda$onUpdatePressed$0(ContributionManagerUI.java:151)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: java.lang.Exception: Error downloading http://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_index.json
at cc.arduino.contributions.DownloadableContributionsDownloader.download(DownloadableContributionsDownloader.java:131)
at cc.arduino.contributions.packages.ContributionInstaller.download(ContributionInstaller.java:334)
at cc.arduino.contributions.packages.ContributionInstaller.downloadIndexAndSignature(ContributionInstaller.java:309)
at cc.arduino.contributions.packages.ContributionInstaller.updateIndex(ContributionInstaller.java:287)
at cc.arduino.contributions.packages.ui.ContributionManagerUI.lambda$onUpdatePressed$0(ContributionManagerUI.java:147)
... 1 more
Caused by: java.net.SocketException: Address family not supported by protocol family: connect
at java.net.DualStackPlainSocketImpl.connect0(Native Method)
at java.net.DualStackPlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(DualStackPlainSocketImpl.java:83)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.doConnect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:350)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:206)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:188)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(PlainSocketImpl.java:172)
at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:392)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:589)
at sun.net.NetworkClient.doConnect(NetworkClient.java:175)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:463)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:558)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.(HttpClient.java:242)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.New(HttpClient.java:339)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.New(HttpClient.java:357)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getNewHttpClient(HttpURLConnection.java:1202)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.plainConnect0(HttpURLConnection.java:1181)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.plainConnect(HttpURLConnection.java:1032)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.connect(HttpURLConnection.java:966)
at cc.arduino.utils.network.FileDownloader.downloadFile(FileDownloader.java:170)
at cc.arduino.utils.network.FileDownloader.download(FileDownloader.java:128)
at cc.arduino.contributions.DownloadableContributionsDownloader.download(DownloadableContributionsDownloader.java:129)
... 5 more

2

(deleted)

3

The part of the error you need to focus on is this:

Caused by: java.net.SocketException: Address family not supported by protocol family: connect

Looks like you might have some spyware on that new laptop:

4

i tried:
Open command prompt (windows start button, type cmd in search)
Click top left of command prompt, click properties, enable quick edit mode
Copy: setx _JAVA_OPTIONS -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true

per the link pert shared

It got me past the error message and started downloading boards but errored out with this message:

package_index.json file signature verification failed

5

in another thread it mentions that a solution is to delete the arduino15 folder inside of AppData hidden folder...
My pc never had that folder after the arduino instal, but I had added it based on previous recommendations...
I just deleted it and restarted arduino again but no luck ... same error

6

OK solved that by doing this:

Click the link following File > Preferences > More preferences can be edited directly in the file - this should open a folder named Arduino15 or similar.
Delete all files in that folder other than preferences.txt. Please be very careful when deleting things on your computer. When in doubt back up!
Restart the Arduino IDE.
Tools > Board > Boards Manager
Wait for downloads to finish.
Click "Close".

All works now!!!

7

fxmech:
in another thread it mentions that a solution is to delete the arduino15 folder inside of AppData hidden folder...
My pc never had that folder after the arduino instal, but I had added it based on previous recommendations...
I just deleted it and restarted arduino again but no luck ... same error

The location of the folder was moved from AppData/Roaming/Arduino15 to AppData/Local/Arduino15 in Arduino IDE 1.6.6 and newer. Likely those instructions were from the days when the folder was still under Roaming.