And you did delete the entire (hidden) ~/.platformio folder in your home directroy and restarted VSCode?A clean reinstall should have taken care of that error.
Yes, I did, plese notice the times of creation of the directories:
I should state that I still get this error regarding idf_tools.py in the output tab that doesn’t neither know how to correct:
Resolving cheap_yellow dependencies...
idf_tools.py installation failed
Already up-to-date.
Updating metadata for the vscode IDE...
Project has been successfully updated!
What’s the output of
ls ~/.platformio/packages/toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf/
~/.platformio/packages/toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf/bin/xtensa-esp-elf-gcc --version
There is no bin folder under xtensa-esp-elf-gcc with version 3.2.1
If I switch back again to version 3.2.0 the bin folder does appear and I have gcc inside, that’s why I can build the project with version 3.2.0
I have to say also that yesterday I even uninstalled the whole VSC and PIO extension and deleted ~/.platformio to try to begin from a totally blank installation.
For some reason it’s not installing the tool correctly.
What’s the output of
pio system info
in a PIO core CLI?
Every time I open VSC I still get this error:
Resolving cheap_yellow dependencies...
idf_tools.py installation failed
This is the output of the system info
francis@macbookfrancis BBCYD_Starter$ pio system info 127 ↵
-------------------------- ----------------------------------------------
PlatformIO Core 6.1.18
Python 3.11.7-final.0
System Type darwin_arm64
Platform macOS-15.5
File System Encoding utf-8
Locale Encoding UTF-8
PlatformIO Core Directory /Users/francis/.platformio
PlatformIO Core Executable /Users/francis/.platformio/penv/bin/platformio
Python Executable /Users/francis/.platformio/penv/bin/python
Global Libraries 0
Development Platforms 1
Tools & Toolchains 7
-------------------------- ----------------------------------------------
That’s What’s the output of
~/.platformio/penv/bin/python ~/.platformio/packages/tl-install/tools/idf_tools.py --non-interactive --tools-json ~/.platformio/packages/toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf/tools.json install
?
No, that was the output of
pio system info
run from a PIO terminal (PIO core CLI)
The output of this last command is this, and it seems there might be the problem
I’m going to look for that lzma module.
Do you see any other way to take?
1 Like
I think that’s the crux of the problem, that’s why it can’t install it.
Can you please install “brew” using the commandline from
Then run
brew install xz
Then rm -rf ~/.platformio again and restart VSCode. Let it fully install.
Sorry but I’m not very friend of brew, back ago I have had some trouble with different versions of system modules and brew modules. I’d prefer to avoid it.
Based on this line:
Extracting /Users/francis/.platformio/dist/xtensa-esp-elf-14.2.0_20241119-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.xz to /Users/francis/.platformio/tools/toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf
I have proceeded to extract it by hand by
francis@macbookfrancis packages$ cd /Users/francis/.platformio/tools/toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf
francis@macbookfrancis toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf$ tar xvfz /Users/francis/.platformio/dist/xtensa-esp-elf-14.2.0_20241119-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.xz
x xtensa-esp-elf/
x xtensa-esp-elf/picolibc/
x xtensa-esp-elf/bin/
x xtensa-esp-elf/libexec/
x xtensa-esp-elf/include/
x xtensa-esp-elf/xtensa-esp-elf/
x xtensa-esp-elf/package.json
...
Finally if I try again your command I get this now
francis@macbookfrancis toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf$ ~/.platformio/python3/bin/python3 ~/.platformio/packages/tl-install/tools/idf_tools.py --non-interactive --tools-json ~/.platformio/packages/toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf/tools.json install
Updating /Users/francis/.platformio/idf-env.json
Selected targets are: esp32s2, esp32, esp32s3
Current system platform: macos-arm64
Installing tools: toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf
Skipping toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf@esp-14.2.0_20241119 (already installed)
And now I definitely have xtensa-esp32-elf-gcc under /Users/francis/.platformio/tools/toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf/xtensa-esp-elf/bin
Now the error is still there but I don’t know how to set the compiler directory:
[5/7/2025, 20:58:50] No se puede resolver la configuración con compilerPath "xtensa-esp32-elf-gcc". Se usará "/usr/bin/clang".
The folder structure does not seem right, you’re supposed to have a working
~/.platformio/packages/toolchain-xtensa-esp-elf/bin/xtensa-esp-elf-gcc --version
after this.
You can also install xz via MacPorts: https://ports.macports.org/port/xz/. Maybe the script creates additional files like the .piopm file that a simple extract would not do. I’d suggest to really try to get the dependencies of that script installed to get it running normally. Otherwise the same procedure might have to be repeated for other packages as well.
The installed Apple Mac python version is crippled. Before i start developing on a new Mac i install brew and with brew python. Without brew and the Apple developer tools (which brew installs) all weird issues occur since functions are removed (probably license issues)
copy does not work! The install process is two step. The Platformio installer step is missing
Hello again,
First of all, thank you very much to both of you for your help, especially to Max who dedicated the whole afternoon to me yesterday.
I hope you don’t call me stubborn but I definitely leave PlatformIO. This morning I have been doing more tests and definitely the platform works well with version 3.2.0 but with 3.2.1 everything are problems if I use the bb_spi_lcd library.
I know you have suggested the installation of the xz library with brew but, honestly, for me it is not worth installing brew for a python library that is used by the PlatformIO installer, which is a VSC extension with which I just want to edit Arduino code. Too heavy and complex everything.
I have definitely returned to my old simple solution: Visual Studio Code as a more powerful editor and I’ll compile and upload the program with arduino-cli.
I have lost the spell of PlatformIO, too complex for my workflow, duplicate libraries, its own configuration, etc. It’s not for me.
I’ve it already running with bb_spi_lcd and version 3.2.1 of the Espressif libraries. I prepared a pair of task for VSC to compile and upload using arduino-cli and I’m back into programming after almost a whole week lost with PlatformIO.
Thank you very much again for the time spent. From the heart.
Best regards.
Francis