V3 Upload menu option is not taken into account (for example with esp8266 )

[krzychb]

Uploading of esp8266 from Arduino IDE 1.6.8 using OTA consists of two steps:

1. Select OTA port
2. Press upload

This process is easy and simple as uploading with a serial port thanks to ArduinoOTA library and new functionality of Arduino IDE implemented with PR-4107.

Arduino Eclipse Plugin V3 already has functionality of detecting and selection of OTA port.

Unfortunately after attempting to upload using esp8266 OTA port, unlike in Arduino IDE, the following window is displayed:

• Does V3 support OTA uploads for esp8266 with ArduinoOTA library like Arduino IDE does?
• If not, does it provide any other method of OTA uploads for esp8266?

Congratulations on developing really easy to use product.
Integration with Arduino boards and libraries is really seamless.
I was able to make it up and running as quickly as Arduino IDE while getting incomparable wealth of features of Eclipse 👍

Krzysztof

[jantje]

esp8266 is not my strongest area but I think this is a duplicate of #333
FYI currently the plugin assumes that you have a yun when you select an Ip address (found by the bonjour service -also called zero config-) in the port field.
From the link you gave it looks like the esp8266 wireless upload follows a different protocol.

[krzychb]

Hi @jantje,

I was reading #333 some time ago and concluded it may take a lot of time and effort to get it implemented strictly the Arduino IDE way.

There may be a quicker solution.

To do OTA for esp8266 that has IP of 192.168.1.112, I need to run the following command from platform.txt flie:

python.exe (…)eclipseArduino\arduinoPlugin\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.1.0/tools/espota.py -i 192.168.1.112 -p 8266 --auth= -f  (…)eclipseArduino\workspace\BasicOTA/Release/BasicOTA.bin

Could you point me to a configuration file of Arduino Eclipse Plugin V3 that I can update to conditionally execute such command?

• The condition would be selection of OTA under Upload Using:.
• I would need to pass to this command IP address selected under Port.

I hope it is doable to convince plugin to assume esp8266 instead of yun when I select an Ip address and OTA 😄

Krzysztof

[jantje]

I had a look at this but apart from the forced yun upload there seems to be another bug.
When using OTA with the board nodemcuv2 the upload tool should be

nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.espota=OTA
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.espota.upload.tool=espota

However in my test it is esptool.
I won't be looking soon to this unless a sponsor steps up at https://www.patreon.com/posts/3700469

[krzychb]

Hi jantje,

Thank you for quick review.
I assumed it as an easy intermediate step to have any OTA support before PR-4107 / #333 is implemented. As this is not the case I would not explore it.

Krzysztof

[jantje]

Yes but the bug still needs to be looked at. So I am reopening this.

[krzychb]

Hi @jantje,

If by bug you mean any issue with menu options listed above, and you get funding to look into it, please consider the following:

After implementation of PR-4107 in Arduino IDE, these options become irrelevant and have been removed from boards.txt of esp8266/Arduino in PR-1747. The latest esp8266/Arduino core release 2.2.0 does not contain them at all.

Uploading of esp8266 is executed with the following script entries in platform.txt file:

For serial upload:

tools.esptool.upload.pattern="{path}/{cmd}" {upload.verbose} -cd {upload.resetmethod} -cb {upload.speed} -cp "{serial.port}" -ca 0x00000 -cf "{build.path}/{build.project_name}.bin"

For network (OTA) upload:

tools.esptool.upload.network_pattern="{network_cmd}" "{runtime.platform.path}/tools/espota.py" -i "{serial.port}" -p "{network.port}" "--auth={network.password}" -f "{build.path}/{build.project_name}.bin"

Specifically to facilitate OTA upload above, esp8266 is advertising the following parameters using mDNS:

• serial.port IP address selected by user,
• network.port UDP port.

A sample of all advertised parameters is shown below:

PR-4107 implements reading of these parameters by Arduino IDE to pass them to OTA upload script entry discussed above.

To make esp8266 "OTA capable" it has to run ArduinoOTA routines.

Esp8266 OTA functionality following this pattern is demonstrated by BasicOTA.ino sketch distributed in esp8266 / Arduino package among examples.

Krzysztof

[jantje]

I have a real difficulty to understand this whole OTA thing. But that is not related to the bug for which I want this issue to remain open.
Basically the "environment variables in eclipse are not set correctly given the menu selection made".

[jantje]

this is sort of a racing condition

What happens is that the boards.txt is processed line by line. In the esp file the upload.tool is specified 3 times for the tested board.
Once as upload.tool and 2 times for the menu items upload protocol (serial and OTA).
Apparently the upload.tool was processed after the menu.
So one could say that this is a bug in the boards.txt file because upload.tool should not be specified.
However I catered for this situation.

Now when selecting ATO (with a com port) it will try to run python as expected.

[krzychb]

@jantje,

I have tried latest nightly build win32.2016-05-05_02-17-24.tar.gz and still see a pop up asking for a login and password as described in first post above. Is 7e68213 included in this nightly build?

What particular upload.tool lines do you mean?

After implementation of PR-4107 in Arduino IDE, all menu entries like:

nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.esptool=Serial
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.esptool.upload.tool=esptool
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.esptool.upload.verbose=-vv
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.espota=OTA
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.espota.upload.tool=espota

become irrelevant and have been removed from boards.txt of esp8266/Arduino in PR-1747. The latest esp8266/Arduino core release 2.2.0 that I see available in win32.2016-05-05_02-17-24.tar.gz does not contain them at all.

Krzysztof

[jantje]

This fix should launch python if you select OTA and a standard com port
In my version I have following in the boards.txt

nodemcuv2.upload.tool=esptool
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.esptool=Serial
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.esptool.upload.tool=esptool
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.esptool.upload.verbose=-vv
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.espota=OTA
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.espota.upload.tool=espota

It is the trouble caused by the first line that is fixed here.
In the case OTA is selected with the content above in the boards.txt; before the fix upload.tool was esptool after the fix upload.tool is espota.

The same can be achieved with modifying boards.txt to

nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.esptool=Serial
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.esptool.upload.tool=esptool
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.esptool.upload.verbose=-vv
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.espota=OTA
nodemcuv2.menu.UploadTool.espota.upload.tool=espota

[me-no-dev]

to get OTA to work, a new "GenericUploader" is needed to handle commands from the platform.txt, then when a network board is found, a few new properties are added to it that distinguish between which uploader should be selected (SSH or Generic). Nothing else should be required to get it to work (and I have it working in my fork)

[jantje]

This bug originates from OTA upload but is no longer linked to it. Please discuss OTA in #333

[krzychb]

Hi @jantje,

Your guidance #333 (comment) made the trick and OTA works 😄
Linux/Windows users should have Avahi/Bonjour installed.
Mac users are good to go by default.

Thank you for making OTA for ESP8266 available in V3!

Good luck with #333 👍

Krzysztof

[cmburns]

Hi,

I am totally new to sloeber together with OTA. I run sloeber on my Windows 10 professional machine.
I have the BasicOTA running on my ESP8266. It shows the IP of my ESP8266.
Then I changed the BasicOTA inside loop() to write something to serial. This changed sketch I wanted to use to test OTA.

What I am missing is the OTA port in the project properties. I only see the COM3.
Python 2.7.13 is installed.

What I further have to do to see the OTA-Port under the ports?

Thanks a lot!