Network ports are gone in ide 2.X

Development Tools IDE 2.x
1

I have been using OTA for a long time on several ESP around the house. yesterday i wanted to update an ESP8266 that is measuring temperatures in the garden, but my ports list doesn’t show ANY network ports anymore. this worked fine before.

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if i start my arduini 1.8 version, it shows all the ports. so the network is fine, the ESP’s are working, bonjour app is working.

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i have looked on google, tried many things but most of the people never had it working before.
mine was working, yesterday just stopped. something must have changed in IDE2.3.5.
I also downloaded IDE2.3.6 in another folder, same problem. it only shows the comports.

when running bonjour i also get the whole list.

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is there somewhere in the preferences where mdns has to be enabled/disabled?

i’m running windows 11, didn”t have any updates on windows recently. my computer NEVER reboots. its on 24/24. yesterday when the problems started, i did a reboot, i disabled firewall (shouldn’t be a problem as arduino 1.8 can see them), rebooted again, started and stopped serveral services i found on the internet, rebooted again….
nothing helps. i can see the ports in all other software, but not IDE 2.3.X

2

Doesn't look like there is an answer to this, something should be done.

In the meantime you can compile your code and run esptool.exe directly and point it to the compiled bin file.

3

i found the problem:

nr1: arduino ide did soms updates. everything was f****d up.
i renamed the arduino folder to old, i installed a fresh arduino IDE software. i copied my sketchbook folder from the old one. i copyed libraries over.

and then the biggest problem:
C:\Users\fcapri\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\builtin\tools\1.0.12\msdn-discovery

IS BAD!!! my other computer only has 1.0.9. the problem computer had 1.0.9 and 1.0.12 in the folder. 1.0.9 is from 22march2023, 1.0.12 was installed 21nov2025, the day my problems started, so i figured, this new folder has something to do with my problems.
removing the folder corrupts the arduino IDE. so i recreated the filder 1.0.12 and copyed the version 1.0.9 in there and discovery worked again. the older arduino 1.8 uses some other tool to discover the OTA devices. appareantly somethings is wrong in the version 12 and arduino remembers it has a new version and refuses to use the older one. copying the old files in the new folder tricks arduino IDE to use the old version.

problem nr2: programs not compiling anymore had to do with:

C:\Users\fcapri\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\tools\xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc\3.1.0-gcc10.3-e5f9fec

i copied that directory from an older computer that had the same arduino ide settings, and everything works again.

i have learned: DO NOT PERFORM ANY UPDATES FROM ARDUINO IDE. i searched 6hours to fix this problem. disable all the updates

4

Thank you so much!

Navigating to
C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\builtin\tools\mdns-discovery

Then copying the contents of "1.0.9" into "1.0.12", replacing them, solved it. I can get my updates through.

As forum user zapinio puts it, "this is pure hazard"! - I'm surprised there aren't hundreds of other people experiencing this issue. Maybe they're all sensible and moved to PlatformIO.

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when i had this problem, i found MANY topics about people not getting the ota ports. when i didn’t find any solution, i started a topic here.
but after 6hours looking, if solved it myself.
i’m happy it fixed it for you to, that version 12 has some big issues. can’t understand they pushed that upgrade to everybody

6

A problem with mdns-discovery version 12 then, not the IDE - but if the IDE doesn't work, then surely that makes it a problem with the IDE...

If I was a sceptic, I would say I think someone upstairs is choosing not to acknowledge the problem and intends to fix it silently in a future update, the justification being it is a pivotal time for Arduino.

Thanks again, I really am in your debt for this fix

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Hi @fcapri. Some fixes have been made in mdns-discovery since the time of this discussion, and those fixes have now been released in version 1.1.0.

Arduino IDE will automatically install the new version the next time you start the IDE, and will use that version. So you may want to check to see if the problem is now solved.

If the problem still occurs even with 1.1.0, you will need to perform the workaround of replacing the 1.1.0 installation with the executable from the 1.0.9 installation, as you did before with version 1.0.12.

If you check 1.1.0, please do reply here to share your findings.

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updates are ALL DISABLED now.
no more new IDE version, no more new libraries. i have to many hardware running on software i coded, i cant afford it to brick everything again with some bad update

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That is understandable. I only wanted to share an update in case it would be of interest.

Best wishes for success with your projects!

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In case others who are interested in the subject read this thread, I must make a correction to this statement I posted earlier:

It turns out that we have not yet added the new release to the primary package index Arduino IDE uses to identify updates. So for now it will continue to use the older version 1.0.12 without the fix.

In case you are interested in trying it out now, 1.1.0 is available for download from the "Assets" section under the GitHub release page:

https://github.com/arduino/mdns-discovery/releases/tag/v1.1.0#:~:text=3%20other%20contributors-,Assets,-14

Otherwise, you can wait for the update from Arduino IDE. I'll circle back here to post an update once that happens.

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1.1.0 has now been published to the index. So Arduino IDE is now able to update mdns-discovery to the version that contains the fixes.