arduino-cli cannot upload to Circuit Playground Express using adafruit FQBN

[sta-c0000]

arduino-cli cannot upload to Circuit Playground Express using FQBN (Fully Qualified Board Name) adafruit:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0

Error reported:

Error during Upload: cannot execute upload tool: fork/exec {runtime.tools.bossac-1.7.0-arduino3.path}/bossac: no such file or directory

Upload works OK using FQBN arduino:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0

Apologies, the differences between the two (adafruit vs arduino) FQBNs is not clear to me. I imagine this issue implies users should use the arduino FQBN, but then why is there an adafruit one? EDIT: required for certain features, see two posts below...

Thank you!

More information

$ arduino-cli version
arduino-cli Version: 0.6.0 Commit: 3a08b07

With following added to ~/.arduino15/arduino-cli.yaml (or can use param below):

board_manager:
  additional_urls:
    - https://adafruit.github.io/arduino-board-index/package_adafruit_index.json

$ arduino-cli core update-index # --additional-urls "https://adafruit.github.io/arduino-board-index/package_adafruit_index.json"
Updating index: package_index.json downloaded
Updating index: package_index.json downloaded
Updating index: package_adafruit_index.json downloaded

$ arduino-cli core search Adafruit Circuit Playground Express
ID            Version Name
adafruit:samd 1.5.7   Adafruit SAMD Boards
arduino:samd  1.8.4   Arduino SAMD Boards (32-bits ARM Cortex-M0+)

$ arduino-cli core install adafruit:samd
$ arduino-cli core install arduino:samd

Compile works, but upload fails using adafruit:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0

$ arduino-cli compile --fqbn adafruit:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0 MyFirstSketch
Sketch uses 10412 bytes (3%) of program storage space. Maximum is 262144 bytes.
$ arduino-cli upload -p /dev/ttyACM0 --fqbn adafruit:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0 MyFirstSketch
No new serial port detected.
Error during Upload: cannot execute upload tool: fork/exec {runtime.tools.bossac-1.7.0-arduino3.path}/bossac: no such file or directory

Compile and upload works using arduino:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0

$ arduino-cli compile --fqbn arduino:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0 MyFirstSketch
Sketch uses 11176 bytes (4%) of program storage space. Maximum is 262144 bytes.
$ arduino-cli upload -p /dev/ttyACM0 --fqbn arduino:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0 MyFirstSketch
No new serial port detected.
Atmel SMART device 0x10010005 found
Device       : ATSAMD21G18A
{...}  # ...redacted ...works```

[ladyada]

hi, unknown why that's happening - we've had no complaints or issue with IDE users or with our travisCI script https://github.com/adafruit/travis-ci-arduino/blob/master/install.sh

[sta-c0000]

I just noticed that certain features, like the Adafruit_NeoPixel_ZeroDMA library, will not work when compiling using --fqbn arduino:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0; whereas they do work using the adafruit fqbn.

So I'm working around this issue by compiling with --fqbn adafruit:samd:adafruit_circuitplayground_m0, then using uf2conv.py to convert the .bin into a .uf2 to copy to the CPLAYBOOT USB mount.

[photomoose]

I can confirm this is also happening with an Adafruit Feather M0.

arduino-cli does not expand the properties for the upload tool - on my machine, the command that is being executed is:

"{runtime.tools.bossac-1.7.0-arduino3.path}/bossac"  --port=cu.usbmodem14301 -U true -i -e -w -v "test/test.adafruit.samd.adafruit_feather_m0.bin"

It looks like there is something wrong with the expansion of {runtime.tools.bossac-1.7.0-arduino3.path}.

[sta-c0000]

Based on issue #22...

Tool versions specified in .arduino15/packages/adafruit/hardware/samd/1.5.7/platform.txt:

[...]
compiler.path={runtime.tools.arm-none-eabi-gcc-7-2017q4.path}/bin/
[...]
tools.bossac.path={runtime.tools.bossac-1.7.0-arduino3.path}
[...]
tools.openocd.path={runtime.tools.openocd-0.10.0-arduino7.path}
[...]

...are out of sync with the 1.5.7 "toolsDependencies" versions specified in package_adafruit_index.json:

             {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "arm-none-eabi-gcc",
              "version": "4.8.3-2014q1"
            },
            {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "bossac",
              "version": "1.7.0"
            },
            {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "openocd",
              "version": "0.9.0-arduino"
            },

Changing package_adafruit_index.json to match platform.txt does the trick:

            {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "arm-none-eabi-gcc",
              "version": "7-2017q4"
            },
            {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "bossac",
              "version": "1.7.0-arduino3"
            },
            {
              "packager": "arduino",
              "name": "openocd",
              "version": "0.10.0-arduino7"
            },

I tested and it works (but had to delete .arduino15/packages/ and re-install: arduino-cli core install adafruit:samd).

It appears it's important those two files have matching versions, but it's not clear to me how they are meant to be kept in sync in this repository? Manually?

[photomoose]

Thanks @sta-c0000 for finding the workaround - I spent an hour or so looking at these files and making changes but nothing took effect!

[themicp]

Thanks @sta-c0000 for finding the workaround - I spent an hour or so looking at these files and making changes but nothing took effect!

After running arduino-cli core update-index you will find the downloaded package_adafruit_index.json file in the .arduino15/ folder. You can then make the changes @sta-c0000 suggested and retry uploading.

[sta-c0000]

Hmmm, there's been two more versions generated since?...
I've just created PR#52 for bpt.ini so that at least future versions should have the correct toolsDependencies... hopefully.

I'll add that Initially I was only able to compile because I had also installed arduino:samd which has correct toolsDependencies and downloaded the correct compiler requested by adafruit:samd. Once package_adafruit_index.json is corrected, then you should be able to compile and upload without needing to also install arduino:samd ...saves disk space.

I am having the same problem with my ItsyBitsym0. I am pretty new to this and I thought I would try the Arduino IDE. What I don't understand is that they share the same location for the board files (the arduino:samd and adafruit:samd I installed with the arduino-cli were detected) and the upload works fine in the GUI app and not in the CLI. So there may be a problem with the different versions of bossac in platform.txt and package_adafruit_index.json, but I don't understand how it would work fine in the IDE and not the cli if it was the only problem.

Anyway, I don't really undersand all this yet and there is probably a good explanation for it, but I find it a bit odd.

[ladyada]

its def possible to use the CLI for itsym0 - we use it in our actions CI
https://github.com/adafruit/ci-arduino/blob/master/build_platform.py

Yeah well, everything compiles fine. It's only the upload that doesn't work with the same Error during Upload: cannot execute upload tool: fork/exec {runtime.tools.bossac-1.7.0-arduino3.path}/bossac: no such file or directory error.

I simply thought it was strange that the issue only affects the cli and not the ide. I guess that the ide does things differently somehow. I thought the ide only used the arduino-cli behind the scenes, but it looks like it's not that simple 😐

Hopefully the pr #52 will fix it 😃

[sta-c0000]

Closing, Thanks! Works since 1.5.11 package_adafruit_index.json now that it is in sync with Adafruit's SAMD platform.txt. And we no longer need to also install arduino:samd.

Note (to users) that it is easiest to add the file ~/.arduino15/arduino-cli.yaml with the contents:

board_manager:
  additional_urls:
    - https://adafruit.github.io/arduino-board-index/package_adafruit_index.json

...otherwise you would need to add the following parameter for most arduino-cli commands, including upload:

 arduino-cli [commands] --additional-urls "https://adafruit.github.io/arduino-board-index/package_adafruit_index.json"

So, from scratch (assuming you've created ~/.arduino15/arduino-cli.yaml):

$ arduino-cli core update-index
$ arduino-cli core install adafruit:samd
$ arduino-cli board list # (= list connected; listall = all known)
# using fqbn and port from above command, to compile and upload:
$ arduino-cli compile --fqbn {fqbn} MyFirstSketch
$ arduino-cli upload -p {port} --fqbn {fqbn} MyFirstSketch