Newbie question regarding usc1.contabostorage.com & sin1.contabostorage.com with VSCode install

agawster · June 28, 2023, 4:21am

I’m not new to “coding”, but new to IDE’s. I barely know a bit on sketch creation with the Arduino IDE and attempting to learn C++ at an old age.

During the install of VSCode and PlatformIO, the later (evidence shows) tried connecting to usc1.contabostorage.com via Python, failed due to my Malewarebytes blocking it as a Phishing attempt, tried a second time to sin1.contabostorage.com and was also blocked as a Phishing attempt.

What is this about, why these “secretive” attempts to connect to external server storage and does this have anything to do with why PlatformIO doesn’t seem to load PlatformIO based ESP IDF code and libraries.

maxgerhardt · June 28, 2023, 11:12am

At first glance this looks like it just uses one of the many servers in PlatformIO content distribution network (CDN) to download the needed packages for the project (such as platform-espressif32, framework-espidf, toolchain-xtensa-esp32.. etc).

Are things like

https://dl.registry.platformio.org/download/platformio/tool/framework-espidf/3.50002.230601/framework-espidf-3.50002.230601.tar.gz

Downloadable normally?

Maybe @ivankravets can confirm?

maxgerhardt · June 28, 2023, 11:13am

Oh yes actually this URL is even mentioned here

github.com/platformio/platformio-core

Chinese mirror of the package registry

opened 02:44PM - 08 Jul 22 UTC

closed 08:35AM - 18 Jul 22 UTC

yangshunhuai

package management registry

What kind of issue is this? - [x] **Feature Request**. Start by tellin…g us what problem you’re trying to solve. Often a solution already exists! Don’t send pull requests to implement new features without first getting our support. Sometimes we leave features out on purpose to keep the project small. ### Configuration **Operating system**: Windows 10 Home 21H2 64-bit **PlatformIO Version** (`platformio --version`): PlatformIO Core, version 6.0.2 ### Description of problem I am a PlatformIO user from China. It is all known to devs in China that there is a You-Know-What system that will cause accessing github.com becoming **very, very, very slow** or even unreachable (ERR_CONNECTION_RESET). When I create a PlatformIO project, it will download a lot of data, including toolchains, SDKs, etc from github or some places like that. Thus the process is extremely slow and it takes hours to install that. In many situations there is completely no network activity. ![internet](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/67225026/178013827-0da18a0b-a9ba-4e00-8c28-5eb4ad6647a4.png) I think it is appropriate for PlatformIO developers to add a `import` function which can `import pre-downloaded toolchains, SDKs, etc` (NOT the ones downloaded from the "Platform" page. Seems that it is only a project framework.). There should also be a place to manually download the files, so that I can call my friends to help me download them. #### Steps to Reproduce Create a new project. ### Actual Results The project wizard stuck there showing ``` Please wait... The first initialization requires Internet connection and may take a while (need to install dependent toolchains, frameworks, SDKs). Please be patient and let the initialization complete. ``` ### Expected Results Project can be created successfully ps. My board: Espressif ESP32 Devkit

agawster · June 28, 2023, 5:22pm

Thanks @maxgerhardt for your reply.

The PlatformIO install vectored me to these “CDN’s” soley related to it’s installation. This was long before my attempt to look at an ESP32 project code.

Surely, these espressif32 bits can be downloaded from other mirrors that are not Chinese. yes/no?

ivankravets · June 28, 2023, 5:22pm

PlatformIO pulls dependencies (libraries, toolchains, etc) from its own CDN (content delivery network). Packages are mirrored to multiple data centers across the globe. PlatformIO picks the server nearest to you that has the best download speed. If one server is unavailable (or blocked by your firewall), it tries another.

agawster · June 28, 2023, 5:24pm

@ivankravets, thank you confirming.

maxgerhardt · June 28, 2023, 5:25pm

It’s not chinese, usc1.contabostorage.com is central USA (hence usc)

eu2.contabostorage.com for example is in Europe (germany more precisely).

agawster · June 28, 2023, 5:41pm

My thanks for the US confirmation. My PlatformIO install is now complete.

Well, or so I thought…what do these ERRORs mean under Output in PlatformIO?

Resolving esp32doit-devkit-v1 dependencies…
Already up-to-date.
Updating metadata for the vscode IDE…
Error: Processing esp32doit-devkit-v1 (platform: espressif32; board: esp32doit-devkit-v1; framework: espidf)

Verbose mode can be enabled via -v, --verbose option
CONFIGURATION: Redirecting...
PLATFORM: Espressif 32 (6.3.2) > DOIT ESP32 DEVKIT V1
HARDWARE: ESP32 240MHz, 320KB RAM, 4MB Flash
DEBUG: Current (cmsis-dap) External (cmsis-dap, esp-bridge, esp-prog, iot-bus-jtag, jlink, minimodule, olimex-arm-usb-ocd, olimex-arm-usb-ocd-h, olimex-arm-usb-tiny-h, olimex-jtag-tiny, tumpa)

PACKAGES:

framework-espidf @ 3.50002.230601 (5.0.2)
tool-cmake @ 3.16.4
tool-esptoolpy @ 1.40501.0 (4.5.1)
tool-idf @ 1.0.1
tool-mconf @ 1.4060000.20190628 (406.0.0)
tool-ninja @ 1.9.0
toolchain-esp32ulp @ 1.23500.220830 (2.35.0)
toolchain-xtensa-esp32 @ 11.2.0+2022r1

Error: Detected a whitespace character in project paths.

========================== [FAILED] Took 1.24 seconds ==========================

maxgerhardt · June 28, 2023, 6:15pm

That’s a limitation of the ESP-IDF build system. You must change your project location to a path that has no spaces.

agawster · June 28, 2023, 6:42pm

@maxgerhardt thank you for that insight. That appears to have been the problem. My current project workspace states ‘no problems detected’ and all my libraries have lost their squiggles.