M5Stack-SAM - Could not find boards.txt

MartinSky

Newbie here and kind of struggling to get the M5Stack-SAM to install. I've got past the hello world stage and even got the DHT12 sample to work, except for the known bug where the temperature values are 0.01C after the Arduino is woken up.

Now I want to get the M5Stack-SAM loaded but when I open the Library Manager in the Arduino IDE, I get the error,

"Could not find boards.txt in C:\Users\myaccount\Documents\Arduino\hardware\PartsandCircuits\M5Stack-SAM. Is it pre-1.5?
WARNING: Error loading hardware folder C:\Users\myaccount\Documents\Arduino\hardware\PartsandCircuits
No valid hardware definitions found in folder PartsandCircuits."

What I did to get this far was to follow the procedure below;

1. Open GIT GUI
2. Select Clone Existing Repository
3. select source and destination
	a. source: https://github.com/PartsandCircuits/M5Stack-SAM
	b. destination: C:/Users/myaccount/Documents/Arduino/hardware/PartsandCircuits/M5Stack-SAM
4. Click 'Clone'

open a Git Bash session CD to C:/Users/myaccount/Documents/Arduino/hardware/PartsandCircuits/M5Stack-SAM and execute 'git submodule update --init --recursive'

So where have I gone wrong here?

JJ

@martinsky

Hi Martin,

There may be a few issues here so I start from the beginning......

OK so first up you need to have completed the standard steps for setting up the M5Stack, located here

You should then have these directories installed:
(1) C:\Users\your-user-name\Documents\Arduino\hardware\espressif\esp32
(2) C:\Users\your-user-name\Documents\Arduino\libraries\M5Stack

If downloading using git, then in git go to directory location equivalent to C:\Users\your-user-name\Documents\Arduino - which from within git will be: ~/Documents/Arduino

Then do:

git clone https://github.com/PartsandCircuits/M5Stack-SAM.git

Go to: C:\Users\your-user-name\Documents\Arduino\M5Stack-SAM\M5Stack-SAM and open the M5Stack-SAM.ino file in the Arduino "IDE".

[ Note that "Parts and Circuits" should not be part of any directory names on your machine ].

Connect M5Stack , select com port, then compile and upload to M5Stack.

( For anyone not using git just select Download and then move the files into the appropriate directory: C:\Users\your-user-name\Documents\Arduino ) Avoid using Arduinos zip install option.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

You will need to be using M5Stack Library version 0.1.6 - some of the more recent libraries will probably not work, but 0.1.6 has been tested to work. I only recently became aware of this. I will make a note of this on the github page and will later try to update it.

To downgrade the M5Stack library version:

In Arduino, go to Sketch/Include Libraries/Manage Libraries then type M5Stack into the search field at the top.... it should then indicate which library version you have installed. If not 0.1.6 then click "Select Version" and select 0.1.6 and then select to install it.

Once you have the SAM menu loaded on your M5Stack you can then revert back to using a more recent version of the M5Stack library with the Arduino "IDE". I haven't noticed any problems resulting from moving between library versions.

OK hope that sorts this out for you.

MartinSky

Hey Jimi,
thank you so much, your instructions here are perfect. I now have the M5Stack-SAM downloaded to my M5Stack and it is fabulous!

cheers,
Martin.

JJ

@martinsky No problem - glad to hear it is now working..... the other two menus on my github page are also very good.... little more involved to setup, but worth the effort.

The SD-Updater menu supports M5Stack library versions 0.1.6 and 0.1.7 (see notes under installation).

The MultiApp Firmware Menu uses the ESP Flash Downloader to upload the code in place of the Arduino "IDE".