I'm trying to make an ESP32-based board (the Olimex FabGL board) work on the Arduino IDE. As suggested by the manufacturer, I chose ESP32 by Espressif version 2.0.11 as the board driver, but when trying to compile a sketch (I've tried this out with a handful of them), I immediately get this error message:
Compilation error: Invalid FQBN: Board esp32:esp32:esp32-sbc-fabgl not found.
The manufacuturer of the board is using version 1.8.19 of the IDE and cannot reproduce this error. Is it possible that version 2.0 of the ESP32 driver is no longer supported by the current version of the IDE?
Note: Unfortunately, the FabGL library has been developed with driver version 2 and will not work with version 3.
Version 2.0.11 of the board package does not have an entry for the OLIMEX ESP32-SBC-FABGL, version 3.2.0 does. I did inspect the file boards.txt for both 3.2.0 and 2.0.11
After that I took the following steps to figure out how you managed to get to the error.
Downgraded my 2.3.0 to 2.0.11 and tried to find OLIMEX ESP32-SBC-FABGL; it's not in the boards list under ESP32.
Upgraded back to 3.2.0
Selected the OLIMEX ESP32-SBC-FABGL.
Successfully compiled an empty sketch.
Downgraded to 2.0.11
Did not change the selection.
Compiled an empty sketch and got the error that you got
I think that this is the only way that you could get to the error. You will notice that with 2.0.11 there is no entry for the OLIMEX ESP32-SBC-FABGL.
Version of the IDE does not matter.
Which problems are you experiencing when using version 3.2.0 of the ESP32 boards package?
OK, thank you. So shall I take the boards.txt file from version 3.2.0 and copy the section belonging to OLIMEX ESP32-SBC-FABGL into the boards file belonging to version 2.0.11, right? Will this suffice?
Did you find this suggestion on a public page on the Internet? If so, please provide a link to it in a reply here on this forum topic.
In general, it is best to use the newest possible version of the platform so that you can benefit from the many enhancements and bug fixes the developers have made in the years since the 2.0.11 release. So you should only use 2.0.11 if you have a very good reason for doing so. Especially so if 2.0.11 does not even meet your needs out of the box.
That may be a valid reason for not using version 3.x of the platform, but it is not a valid reason for using 2.0.11 instead of the more modern 2.0.17.
It is not certain that the board definition from 3.2.0 will work with the 2.0.11 platform. It might be that the board definition would need to be adjusted to reflect changes made to the platform between the two versions.
I had simply copied the board definition from the boards file that came with driver 3.2.0 into that of version 2.0.11.
What's strange: Olimex has already tested the board and was able to compile a sketch with driver 2.0.11 under IDE version 1.8.19 and even suggested me to downgrade the whole IDE, what sounds counterintuitive to me. But if it works, why not?
I've just tried it out with ver. 2.0.17, but no use. Same error.
UPDATE: With the "legacy" IDE (ver. 1.8.19), the whole stuff does work together with ESP32 driver version 2.0.11 and the FabGL library Olimex supplies and then restarting the IDE. Compilation & upload complete. One probolem remains, though: Why doesn't this stuff work with the current version of the IDE?
If you have standard installs of both IDE 2.x and IDE 1.x on the same PC, the setup that works under 1.x should also work in 2.x. Both IDEs share the board package and libraries unless you do odd stuff.
I've got standard installs of the IDE, both from Arduino. Nevertheless, the whole stuff compiles and runs on IDE ver. 1.8.19, but not under ver. 2.3.6. Don't ask me why.
