Missing Board Menu Items

I have been trying to install my ESP32. I have already installed a few third party boards. I went to the manager and got the Espressive 32 listed in what I assume to be the proper manner. When I went to select the board in the menu, it was not there and all my other third party boards have disappeared, leaving only the Arduino group.

I went back to the manager and the ESP32 is still listed at the bottom, but I see that Node MCU is no longer there. Maybe that is because their URL is no longer in the box, and I'm not sure that matters at the moment. Right now, I just want the ESP32.

What am I doing wrong?

You must have the correct URL in the additional boards manager.

Without that the board manager does not know where to get additional packages.
Is it a regular node mcu or a 32 bit node mcu as there are some differences ?

https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json < That covers the 32 series quite well

http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json <covers the rest of the ESP series

It is probably best to include both if you are unsure.

My problem is the board menu, not the manager. There were two clear groups in my manager - Arduino and ESP8266. Now, all my third party stuff has disappeared. As I said, I just want the ESP32.
I used the link you mention. I guess my only problem with the manager is that I replaced the Node-MCU link therein rather than simply added to it.

AHA!! Now I know a little bit about what is going on.

I have just added your other link into the URL in preferences and run manager. The ESP8266 stuff is listed therein with INSTALLED after it. The ESP32 stuff is there but does not. I checked at the top of the list, and Arduino boards also has the INSTALLED. I don't suppose I noticed that before.

So:
1 with your link added in Preferences, I now have the ESP8266 stuff back in the menu. Thank you.
2. The ESP32 stuff is still not in the menu, clearly because it is not installed.

Conclusions:

  1. board installation does not stick. The URLs are checked against Preferences whenever the manager is run.
  2. something is wrong with the ESP32 URL - I have it in the list but the contents will not install

At least I'm back where I started, I understand the Manager better, and I'm pretty sure I know where the problem lies.

When you make those additions I find it best to do it directly to the preferences file using the link it provides to open preferences.

Once you have them open in NOTEPAD or similar please CLOSE the IDE as that is an important step.
Make the changes and save them but make sure you dont just save them with a TXT extension as that will also cause them to fail to stick.

Once they are saved you can close notepad (or whatever you use)

Then re-open the IDE.
Just as a check open the preferences tab from the IDE and make sure they are still there.
If they are then GREAT.

You can use board manager to uninstall and re-install if need be as the URL's were the important part for board manager to know what is available to it.

Also ensure you use a comma "," between the URL's so it knows that there are more than one URL.

If you see any errors in the lower console of the IDE about it not finding any boards then you may have mistyped something in the URL's so worth checking.

Thanks, I found the fatal flaw.
In the manager the standard Arduino stuff and the ESP8266 were clearly installed, while the ESP32 was merely listed. So how to install? Press the Install button. Where the hell is that? It's hidden under the More Info note - indeed, it is the only "more info" there is. I guess there was an instruction to do that, but I found it by blunder.

I was wrong, there was nothing wrong with the URL.

I now have ESP32 stuff in the board list, and everything is (probably) as it should be...