After today's VS Code update Pioarduino which is not installed shows in PlatformIO

[chupo_cro]

TLDR:

After today’s VS Code update Pioarduino which is not installed shows in PlatformIO exactly as in this screenshot and I can’t anymore create a new ESP32-S3 project.

More details:

Yesterday I updated VS Code and created a new project configured as:

[env:esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8]
platform = espressif32
board = esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8
framework = arduino

and everyting worked well:

Processing esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8 (platform: espressif32; board: esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8; framework: arduino)
----
Tool Manager: Installing https://github.com/pioarduino/scons/releases/download/4.8.1/scons-local-4.8.1.tar.gz
Downloading  [####################################]  100%
Unpacking  [####################################]  100%
Tool Manager: tool-scons@4.40801.0 has been installed!
Verbose mode can be enabled via `-v, --verbose` option
CONFIGURATION: https://docs.platformio.org/page/boards/espressif32/esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8.html
PLATFORM: Espressif 32 (55.3.35) > Espressif ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1-N16R8V (16 MB Flash Quad, 8 MB PSRAM Octal)
HARDWARE: ESP32S3 240MHz, 320KB RAM, 16MB Flash

In the past I was using:

[env:esp32-s3-devkitc-1]
platform = https://github.com/pioarduino/platform-espressif32/releases/download/55.03.35/platform-espressif32.zip
board = esp32-s3-devkitc-1
framework = arduino

and that is why PLATFORM: Espressif 32 (55.3.35) was already installed.

I left VS Code opened since yesterday and today there was a message “Restart to update”. After restarting VS Code it was updated to:

Version: 1.128.0 (system setup)
Commit: fc3def6774c76082adf699d366f31a557ce5573f
Date: 2026-07-07T15:14:24-07:00
Electron: 42.5.0
ElectronBuildId: 14525058
Chromium: 148.0.7778.271
Node.js: 24.17.0
V8: 14.8.178.33-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19045

BTW, yesterday and today VS Code was updated by the installer and not by just restarting the program as before.

Then I created another project via PlatformIO using the very same Espressif ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1-N16R8V (16 MB Flash Quad, 8 MB PSRAM Octal) board as yesterday but there was an error:

Could not initialize project:

PIO Core Call Error: "The following files/directories have been created in path\\project_name
include - Put project header files here
lib - Put project specific (private) libraries here
src - Put project source files here
platformio.ini - Project Configuration File
Resolving esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8 dependencies...
Platform Manager: Installing https://github.com/pioarduino/platform-espressif32/releases/download/stable/platform-espressif32.zip
Downloading 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Unpacking 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Platform Manager: espressif32@55.3.39 has been installed!
Platform Manager: Removing espressif32 @ 55.3.39
Platform Manager: espressif32@55.3.39 has been removed!

IncompatiblePlatform: Development platform 'espressif32' is not compatible with PlatformIO Core v6.1.18 and depends on PlatformIO Core >=6.1.19."

and the Project Wizard window showed up as if I had just clicked New Project.

Then I noticed “Welcome to pioarduino” and pioarduino logo at the top of the PlatformIO home screen.

I checked if pioarduino extension is installed and it is not installed. Yesterday, VS Code did show a message: “Do you want to install the recommended ‘pioarduino IDE’ extension from pioarduino for this repository?”, but I did not install it and it still isn’t installed.

I was searching for pioarduino shows in platformio and found the link I mentioned before:

PlatformIO shows up as pioarduino

I’m not sure if this is an issue here or with pioarduino? To be clear I’ve never installed pioarduino and VSCode keeps pestering me to install it but this is what shows up when I open Home: [image] Extensions say I have PlatformIO, but here this page shows up. This is very strange, and it is happening in multiple installations, both a Windows and Linux installation.

I opened the project that I created yesterday but PlatformIO: Build now no loger works and the error is:

ImportError: cannot import name '__version__' from 'urllib3' (unknown location)

 *  The terminal process "some_path\.platformio\penv\Scripts\platformio.exe 'run'" terminated with exit code: 1. 
 *  Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

I closed the project and whan I clicked on PlatformIO icon, all of a sudden there was a message Downloading PlatformIO IDE.

After a while there was a message PlatformIO IDE has been successfully installed! Please reload window (source: PlatformIO IDE) and there was another message saying PlatformIO Installer: Finished! Please restart VSCode.

However, after restarting VS Code there is still “Welcome to pioarduino” at the top of PIO Home window.

I thought there would be many descriptions of the same problem but I’ve found only one :-/

And I hope this could be resolved without deleting all ESP32 Platform versions.

[chupo_cro]

I’ve found what causes the problem:

Up until yesterday, after creating a new project platformio.ini was initialised as:

[env:esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8]
platform = espressif32
board = esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8
framework = arduino

but since today, after creating a new project platformio.ini is:

[env:esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8]
platform = https://github.com/pioarduino/platform-espressif32/releases/download/stable/platform-espressif32.zip
board = esp32-s3-devkitc1-n16r8
framework = arduino

In the first case whan platform was specified as espressif32, the framework that was already installed was used by the new project - in my case Espressif 32 (55.03.35)

In the second case the most recent version of the framework is forced to be downloaded and used when creating a new project - at the moment Espressif 32 (55.03.39).

Espressif 32 (55.03.39) needs PlatformIO Core >=6.1.19 and that was the reason why New Project Wizard can’t complete the tasks.

I tried to update PlatformIO Core from 6.1.18 to 6.1.19:

>platformio --version
PlatformIO Core, version 6.1.18

>pio upgrade
Please wait while upgrading PlatformIO Core ...
PlatformIO has been successfully upgraded to 6.1.18
Release notes: https://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/history.html
Warning! Please restart IDE to affect PIO Home changes

>platformio --version
PlatformIO Core, version 6.1.18

but the version of PlatformIO Core remained 6.1.18 despite the most recent version is 6.1.19 (2026-02-04)

Release Notes — PlatformIO latest documentation

If I understand correctly 6.1.9 is not development version.

As a workaround I can now create a new project by editing platformio.ini after New Project Wizard fails and then opening the project folder.