Atmel-ice unknown debug tool

Hello,
I’ve been using platformIO for a few years. Today is my first time trying to use the Atmel-ICE with it.
I’m using the info from here, which looked quite easy, but it doesn’t work for me.
The project builds okay if I comment out the two atmel-ice lines from platformio.ini

[env:attiny85]
platform = atmelavr
board = attiny85
framework = arduino
debug_tool = atmel-ice
upload_protocol = atmel-ice

But with those two lines not commented out when I build I get this:

Verbose mode can be enabled via `-v, --verbose` option
DebugInvalidOptionsError: Unknown debug tool `atmel-ice`. Please use one of `simavr` or `custom`:
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\penv\Lib\site-packages\platformio\builder\main.py", line 173:
    env.SConscript("$BUILD_SCRIPT")
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\packages\tool-scons\scons-local-4.7.0\SCons\Script\SConscript.py", line 612:
    return _SConscript(self.fs, *files, **subst_kw)
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\packages\tool-scons\scons-local-4.7.0\SCons\Script\SConscript.py", line 279:
    exec(compile(scriptdata, scriptname, 'exec'), call_stack[-1].globals)
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\platforms\atmelavr\builder\main.py", line 161:
    target_elf = env.BuildProgram()
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\packages\tool-scons\scons-local-4.7.0\SCons\Util\envs.py", line 251:
    return self.method(*nargs, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\penv\Lib\site-packages\platformio\builder\tools\piobuild.py", line 61:
    env.ProcessProgramDeps()
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\packages\tool-scons\scons-local-4.7.0\SCons\Util\envs.py", line 251:
    return self.method(*nargs, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\penv\Lib\site-packages\platformio\builder\tools\piobuild.py", line 111:
    env.PrintConfiguration()
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\packages\tool-scons\scons-local-4.7.0\SCons\Util\envs.py", line 251:
    return self.method(*nargs, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\penv\Lib\site-packages\platformio\builder\tools\pioplatform.py", line 233:
    _get_debug_data(),
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\penv\Lib\site-packages\platformio\builder\tools\pioplatform.py", line 197:
    % board_config.get_debug_tool_name(env.GetProjectOption("debug_tool")),
  File "C:\Users\David\.platformio\penv\Lib\site-packages\platformio\platform\board.py", line 126:
    raise DebugInvalidOptionsError(
========================== [FAILED] Took 1.80 seconds ==========================

I have the ICE plugged into my laptop and it worked previously worked okay with Atmel Studio, but that was a couple of years ago.
Does anyone know what I’m doing wrong?
TIA
Dave

Hmm, maybe platformIO only supports it for ARM not AVR.
Initially I just saw this:


But on reading further it doesn’t seem to list any AVR boards

Correct. Debugging AVR chips with the Atmel-ICE tool is unsupported and quite frankly a mess, thanks to Microchip not releasing an open source GDB server, but only looking after their nice proprietary Micrchip Studio environment. See related posts like https://community.platformio.org/t/updi-debugging-avr128dx-with-platformio/32807/4?u=maxgerhardt.

The program “avarice” could potentially use your atmel-ice to connect to an ATTiny85. See https://community.platformio.org/t/atmega32-debugging-with-avarice-and-avr-gdb/15960/2?u=maxgerhardt and https://github.com/avrdudes/avarice.

Thank you for the link. I’ll take a look tomorrow