Problem when adding a custom board in board manager

ptillisch · June 11, 2025, 11:01am

I submitted a report about this to the Arduino CLI developers:

Confusing error when platform installation fails due to unavailable tool

opened 11:01AM - 11 Jun 25 UTC

topic: code type: imperfection topic: package-management

### Describe the problem The [tool dependencies](https://arduino.github.io/ardu…ino-cli/dev/package_index_json-specification/#platforms-definitions:~:text=core%20archive%20file)-,toolsDependencies,-%3A%20the%20tools%20needed) of a platform may be specified in a [package index](https://arduino.github.io/arduino-cli/dev/package_index_json-specification/). Arduino CLI will install these tools along with the platform. Since they are typically executable binaries, a separate tool distribution package must be [provided for each host architecture](https://arduino.github.io/arduino-cli/dev/package_index_json-specification/#tools-flavours-available-builds-made-for-different-os). If a tool dependency is not available for the host architecture, the `core install` command fails with an error message of the following form: ```text Error during install: Platform '<platform ID>' not found: platform is not available for your OS ``` (where `<platform ID>` is the ID of the platform the user is attempting to install) 🐛 The "`Platform '<platform ID>' not found`" part of the error message is misleading because the platform was indeed found. This may lead the user to think the failure was caused by an error they made either in providing the package index URL, or the platform ID. ### To reproduce #### Setup environment ```text $ arduino-cli version arduino-cli Version: git-snapshot Commit: 2947cfb71 Date: 2025-06-10T23:45:14Z $ echo ' { "packages": [ { "name": "foovendor", "maintainer": "Foo Maintainer", "websiteURL": "https://example.com/", "email": "foo@example.com", "platforms": [ { "name": "Foo Boards", "architecture": "fooarchitecture", "version": "0.0.1", "category": "Contributed", "url": "https://downloads.arduino.cc/cores/staging/avr-1.8.6.tar.bz2", "archiveFileName": "avr-1.8.6.tar.bz2", "checksum": "SHA-256:ff1d17274b5a952f172074bd36c3924336baefded0232e10982f8999c2f7c3b6", "size": "7127080", "help": { "online": "https://example.com" }, "boards": [], "toolsDependencies": [ { "packager": "foovendor", "name": "footool", "version": "0.0.1" } ] } ], "tools": [ { "name": "footool", "version": "0.0.1", "systems": [] } ] } ] } ' > "/tmp/package_foo_index.json" ``` #### Demo ```text $ arduino-cli core install --additional-urls file:///tmp/package_foo_index.json foovendor:fooarchitecture Error during install: Platform 'foovendor:fooarchitecture' not found: platform is not available for your OS ``` ### Expected behavior The error message does not contain misleading content. This can be accomplished by simply removing the "`not found`" from the "`Platform '<platform ID>' not found`" part of the error message: ```text Error during install: Platform '<platform ID>': platform is not available for your OS ``` ### Arduino CLI version 2947cfb71 ### Operating system Windows ### Operating system version 11 ### Additional context Originally reported at https://forum.arduino.cc/t/problem-when-adding-a-custom-board-in-board-manager/1387975 ### Issue checklist - [x] I searched for previous reports in [the issue tracker](https://github.com/arduino/arduino-cli/issues?q=) - [x] I verified the problem still occurs when using the [nightly build](https://arduino.github.io/arduino-cli/dev/installation/#nightly-builds) - [x] My report contains all necessary details

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Problem when adding a custom board in board manager

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