Support for Arduino IDE 1.8.10

[januszczyk]

Hi Greig,

I've been running a NodeMCU for quite some time - perfect solution to security device connectivity. This is using Beta 145.

Recently I started development against a new Mega 2560 for a different use case. I went to compile and got a "bad CPU type in executable" error. A bunch of research shows that upgrading my Mac OS X to 10.15 I am no longer compatible with the Arduino toolchain. Specifically 32-bit support has been dropped and thus the toolchain no longer works.

Checking the Arduino sites/release notes I find the following in 1.8.10 (released 2019.09.13):
Bundle new avr toolchain (fixes lto issue with 5.4.0 and 64bit compatibility with upcoming macOS Catalina) I know that the recent 158 beta added support for 1.8.9. Any chance we can upgrade to 1.8.10 in the next beta? Alternatively what happens if I use 1.8.10 with beta 166 - are there specific dependencies that will break me? Perhaps I'll need to install a test Homeseer, install 166 and give it a try.

I'm not entirely sure how to work around this... virtual machine running older version of OS? Hmmm...

Thanks,
-Jeff

[januszczyk]

Thought I would post an update.

Playing around seems to confirm that the plugin, at least used in API mode, is not tied to the version of the Arduino IDE. I had previously installed 1.8.1 per instructions and then updated it to the latest version (1.8.10) in order to be compatible with latest OS on the Mac. The resulting environment had no issues as at with building and deploying the sketch on the Mega. This compiled sketch then worked perfectly with the version of the plugin (API 145) that I have installed. It appears that as long as you download a compatible sketch the version of the IDE you use isn't hugely important. I'm sure there are nuances and library dependencies (and their versions) that factor in, but at least between 1.8.1 and 1.8.10 all works.

Now trying to run a mega via USB connected to a virtual machine running in VMWare ESXi - that was a totally different experience. In case anyone goes on that journey make absolutely sure you are running ESXi 6.7 (latest update) *not* 6.5 - the USB devices seems to be incompatible with *only* the arduino (no other USB device) and work for about 1-3 minutes before the USB port goes offline. Debugging this with the plugin was difficult - you simply got a message about "write error" and timing out. I don't want to use an ethernet shield because this is controlling a piece of equipment which ironically needs dependable communications (I don't want to risk a wifi access point going off-line). It's not life threatening or anything...