Windows 10, McAfee, ESP8266: file... being used by another process

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

I just migrated to a new laptop, from a 2-year-old Toshiba to a new Dell XPS 15 with SSD, and the Arduino ESP8266 compilations fail due to a conflict with my virus scanner (McAfee).

I would love to Exclude the Arduino temporary compilation folder from the virus scan, but Arduino IDE chooses a new name every time it is restarted.

Any suggestions other than disabling my virus scanner or excluding the entire AppData\Local\Temp folder?

Details:
Windows 10 Home.
16GB Ram
512 GB SSD (the previous laptop, which happily compiled Arduino ESP8266 Sketches, had a spinning disk).
Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU @2.80 GHz 2.80 GHz
Arduino IDE 1.8.5
esp8266 by ESP8266 Community version 2.3.0 installed

The symptom: I start Arduino IDE, select Board: Sparkfun ESP8266 Thing Dev (I've installed the ESP8266 support), open the Blink Sketch and compile. The compilation fails.
If I disable McAfee virus scanning before I compile, the compilation succeeds.
If I select Board: Arduino/Genuino Uno, the compilation succeeds, regardless of the state of virus scanning.

I realize that this seems to be an ESP8266-specific problem, but because the issue happens in the Arduino ctags app, I thought I'd try for an answer in this forum before going to the ESP8266 Community forum.

The compiler verbose output follows:

Arduino: 1.8.5 (Windows 10), Board: "SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev, 80 MHz, 115200"

C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\arduino-builder -dump-prefs -logger=machine -hardware C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware -hardware C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages -hardware C:\Users\Brad\Documents\Arduino\hardware -tools C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\tools-builder -tools C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\tools\avr -tools C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages -built-in-libraries C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\libraries -libraries C:\Users\Brad\Documents\Arduino\libraries -fqbn=esp8266:esp8266:thingdev:CpuFrequency=80,UploadSpeed=115200 -ide-version=10805 -build-path C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_86713 -warnings=none -build-cache C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_cache_285868 -prefs=build.warn_data_percentage=75 -prefs=runtime.tools.esptool.path=C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\tools\esptool\0.4.9 -prefs=runtime.tools.xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc.path=C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\tools\xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc\1.20.0-26-gb404fb9-2 -prefs=runtime.tools.mkspiffs.path=C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\tools\mkspiffs\0.1.2 -verbose C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\examples\01.Basics\Blink\Blink.ino
C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\arduino-builder -compile -logger=machine -hardware C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware -hardware C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages -hardware C:\Users\Brad\Documents\Arduino\hardware -tools C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\tools-builder -tools C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\tools\avr -tools C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages -built-in-libraries C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\libraries -libraries C:\Users\Brad\Documents\Arduino\libraries -fqbn=esp8266:esp8266:thingdev:CpuFrequency=80,UploadSpeed=115200 -ide-version=10805 -build-path C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_86713 -warnings=none -build-cache C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_cache_285868 -prefs=build.warn_data_percentage=75 -prefs=runtime.tools.esptool.path=C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\tools\esptool\0.4.9 -prefs=runtime.tools.xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc.path=C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\tools\xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc\1.20.0-26-gb404fb9-2 -prefs=runtime.tools.mkspiffs.path=C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\tools\mkspiffs\0.1.2 -verbose C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\examples\01.Basics\Blink\Blink.ino
Using board 'thingdev' from platform in folder: C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0
Using core 'esp8266' from platform in folder: C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0
Build options changed, rebuilding all
Detecting libraries used...
"C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\tools\xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc\1.20.0-26-gb404fb9-2/bin/xtensa-lx106-elf-g++" -D__ets__ -DICACHE_FLASH -U__STRICT_ANSI__ "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0/tools/sdk/include" "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0/tools/sdk/lwip/include" "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_86713/core" -c -w -Os -g -mlongcalls -mtext-section-literals -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti -falign-functions=4 -std=c++11 -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -w -x c++ -E -CC -DF_CPU=80000000L -DLWIP_OPEN_SRC -DARDUINO=10805 -DARDUINO_ESP8266_THING_DEV -DARDUINO_ARCH_ESP8266 -DARDUINO_BOARD="ESP8266_THING_DEV" -DESP8266 "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0\cores\esp8266" "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0\variants\thing" "C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_86713\sketch\Blink.ino.cpp" -o "nul"
Generating function prototypes...
"C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\tools\xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc\1.20.0-26-gb404fb9-2/bin/xtensa-lx106-elf-g++" -D__ets__ -DICACHE_FLASH -U__STRICT_ANSI__ "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0/tools/sdk/include" "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0/tools/sdk/lwip/include" "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_86713/core" -c -w -Os -g -mlongcalls -mtext-section-literals -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti -falign-functions=4 -std=c++11 -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -w -x c++ -E -CC -DF_CPU=80000000L -DLWIP_OPEN_SRC -DARDUINO=10805 -DARDUINO_ESP8266_THING_DEV -DARDUINO_ARCH_ESP8266 -DARDUINO_BOARD="ESP8266_THING_DEV" -DESP8266 "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0\cores\esp8266" "-IC:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.3.0\variants\thing" "C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_86713\sketch\Blink.ino.cpp" -o "C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_86713\preproc\ctags_target_for_gcc_minus_e.cpp"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\tools-builder\ctags\5.8-arduino11/ctags" -u --language-force=c++ -f - --c++-kinds=svpf --fields=KSTtzns --line-directives "C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_86713\preproc\ctags_target_for_gcc_minus_e.cpp"
open C:\Users\Brad\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_86713\sketch\Blink.ino.cpp: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
Error compiling for board SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev.

2

Try to change the path where arduino stores the files and exclude that from mcAfee instead of your whole %temp% folder.

3

McAfee has the ability to exclude a "directory"and that is the method you should use.
That would let the contents change eg. file names. However do not include temporary folders that windows uses.

4

noelvissers: I found a page about setting the temporary folder, at https://www.kanda.com/blog/microcontrollers/avr-microcontrollers/find-arduino-hex-files-output-binaries/

That post suggests editing the Arduino preferences.txt file and adding a build.path variable.

I tried that. I found that my initial change to the build.path (to a folder under Documents) caused even Arduino Uno builds to fail with unresolved references to Main. Fortunately, setting build.path to C:\Users\Me\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino avoided that problem.

Now all I have to do is find how to convince my Home (not Enterprise) McAfee to exclude a folder rather than a file.

Thanks for the hint,
Brad

5

ballscrewbob: Thanks for the pointer. If I were running McAfee Virus Scan Enterprise, it sounds like that should fix the problem. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found a way to tell McAfee AntiVirus Plus version to exclude a folder - it seems to understand only how to exclude files (one by one).

Interestingly, even though the error message in my initial question is about a temporary .cpp file, excluding that specific file didn't solve the problem. So I need to do a little more research to find whether a) there's a way for me to exclude a folder in McAfee AntiVirus Plus, and b) whether I can work around the problem by excluding specific files other than the .cpp file.

Thanks again,
Brad

6

Almost all the other AV programs will let you exclude folders too but McAfee is a PITA for that aspect.

Not used that or Norton for many years as they are in my "bloatware" list.